Buea: Mayor Ekema dropped from the University of Buea

The academic scandal has been going on for a while now at the University of Buea where the Mayor of the Buea Council, Ekema Patrick Esunge was accused of faking his way into the Anglo-Saxon university.

Despite the denial from the Mayors indicating that the accusations are moves from his detractors to tarnish his image, officials of the University of Buea took it by themselves to investigate into the accusations.

The new vice chancellor of the University, Ngono Horace Manga created a commission in that light and results of their inquiries indicate that Mr. Ekema was not qualified to teach at the university.

Informed of the evidence surrounding the accusations, the 73^rd senate of the University met last Friday April 6, 2018 in Buea and took the overwhelming decision to withdraw the certificates of Ekema Patrick Esunge. In simple terms, the Mayor of the Buea council who was lecturer at the University of Buea has been dismissed from the institution; first his name was dropped from the University and a letter has been sent to the minister of Higher education regarding the decision for onward decisions to be taken.

The scandal

The scandal started like a joke in 2017 when the minister of Finance Alamine Ousmane Mey launched an operation “Hunt fake certificate holders” in public institutions. The then Vice Chancellor of the University of Buea, Nalova Lyonga carried out the exercise at the University of Buea, UB and discovered that Mayor Ekema was among 100 others who had fake certificates in UB. Their names were published in the school campus.

From the publications, rights crusader, TAMBE TIKU, Regional Secretary of the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms, took off to investigate the veracity of the certificates of the Mayor.

On the 10^th of July 2017 at the University of Buea, some disgruntled students brandished placards denouncing the constant circulation of fake certificates in the institution. The students gathered in front of the Amphi theatre Dorothy Njeuma chanting, “No Advanced Level, No UB”.

Their reaction came following revelations from Tambe Tiku that Mayor Ekema Patrick Esunge gained admission into the University fraudulently. According to the rights activist, the Mayor neither passed the GCE O/L nor did he succeed even in two papers during his four attempts in the Advanced Level.

The minister of Higher Education professor Jacques Fames Ndongo who was in Buea on the 10^th of July 2017  for the installation of the newly appointed Pro Chancellor and Vice Chancellor of the University approached and promise the students to look into the fake certificate crisis that has rocked the University of Buea.

Worth nothing is the fact that the rights activists had earlier filed in a complaint to the South West regional state prosecutor against Mayor Ekeme on charges of forgery.

Mayor Ekema Patrick’s fake certificate scandals also led to discovery that he hold a PHD certificate from an American University, bringing in another unanswered question of how he managed to get a PHD given that his past degrees are fake.

This latest development is seen as a stumbling block which could certainly have repercussions on the political career of this member of the ruling CPDM party.