Martin Jumbam

Christian Cardinal Wiyghan Tumi waves last olive branch of peace to separatists

Shortly before his death on Good Friday, April 2, 2021, Christian Cardinal Wiyghan Tumi, the Emeritus Archbishop of Douala, Cameroon, paid what was to be his last visit to his home village of Kikaikelaki, Bui Division in northwestern Cameroon, a place he himself describes as "a known fierce battle ground in Kumbo." There, he appealed to the separatists, who are fighting government forces in a bid to carve out of the State of Cameroon an independent entity they call "Ambazonia", to lay down their arms and take their place around the dialogue table with the government.  To Cardinal Tumi, their struggle is an exercise in futility which has brought much hardship to the ordinary people, who are caught between the brutality of government forces, who accuse them of aiding and abetting separatism, and the separatists themselves, who have resorted to extortion, kidnappings for a ransom, and other acts of brutality against the very people they claim they are fighting to free from oppression.  In the report of his visit, he makes a desperate last minute attempt to persuade the separatists to lay down their arms and embrace dialogue with the government.  Below is his report.

 

There once was a man named Chief Justice SML Endeley

I notice as I grow older that the fingers of my mind frequently reach into the hidden recesses of my memory from where they pull out, and intermittently flash before my eyes, the names and faces of people I might have met, sometimes just once in my life. Then, no matter how hard I try to ignore them, they cling, like a leech, onto the edges of my thoughts and peace only returns to my mind when I release them on paper.

Ms. Pamela Martin, I salute and thank you!

The other day, I stumbled on Ms. Pamela Martin’s FaceBook page by chance and waves at memory beach came washing up the shores of my mind bringing with them, and in stark clarity, something that happened in the early days of my school life in CCAST Bambili (1970-1972).

Public Documents on Southern Cameroons Unification 1959-1961

Professor Verkijika FANSO 

As information continues to circulate that the 'Cameroons Anglophone Case Hearing' will take place in the Committee of the British House of Commons in London on February 1, 2017, I thought that this document, which was published in The Post Newspaper in 2013 on the issue of the unification of British Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun in 1961, be brought to the attention of the Committee Members to refresh their minds.

Disability and press coverage in Cameroon: a personal perspective.

Martin Jumbam

 The theme for this year’s International Day of Persons living with Disabilities (December 3, 2012) is “Removing barriers to create an inclusive and accessible society for all.” To mark this event, the Bamenda Coordinating Centre for Studies in Disability and Rehabilitation (BCSDR) and the International Centre for Disability and Rehabilitation (ICDR) of the University of Toronto, Canada, organized a conference in Bamenda, on Saturday, December 8, 2012, titled the “Bamenda Conference on Disability and Rehabilitation”. I was given the opportunity to address participants to that conference and I spoke on how I see the press in Cameroon covering persons living with disabilities among us.

Be much more than just a translator and/or interpreter

By Martin Jumbam 

On Saturday, January 14, 2012, the Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters of Cameroon (APTIC) held its General Assembly in the conference room of Azur Hotel in Yaounde, Cameroon. I was invited to give a word of advice to the younger members of the Association. This is what I told them.

Fifty years after independence: What future for Cameroon’s journalism?

Martin Jumbam

On Friday, June 11, 2010, the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of Buea University invited me to give a keynote address to budding journalists on the theme, “Fifty Years of Cameroon’s Independence: What Future for Media Practitioners?”  This was on the occasion of that Department’s Open Day at the Open Commons of Buea University.  This is, in substance, what I told them.

  

Obituary: Celebrated Cameroonian Writer Kenjo wan Jumbam is Dead

On December 12, 2005, my brother, Kenjo Jumbam left this world for a much better place. I am at a loss to describe what I feel at this time. However, when the pain and anguish caused by my brother's untimely death subsides, I will pay him a befitting tribute. In the meantime, I will leave you with a beautiful eulogy written by Dr. Joyce Ashutangtang Abunaw.

Martin K Jumbam.