CI-NEWS

Barrister Agbor Nkongho may sue University of Buea over termination of his teaching contract.

2020-05-18

No: 496

Barrister Agbor Nkongho may sue University of Buea over termination of his teaching contract.

By Christopher Ambe.

The University of Buea (UB) on Wednesday, May 6, terminated the teaching contract of noted human rights campaigner, Barrister Felix Agbor Nkongho who was an instructor in the Faculty of Laws and Political Science of the institution since 2015.

But Agbor Nkongho, considered as a spirited fighter, appears to be bent on engaging the University of Buea in a legal battle in the days ahead over what has been described as “wrongful termination of contract.”

“The contract of Mr. Felix Agbor Nkongho, recruited as an instructor in the Department of English Law through Decision N0. 2015/0514/UB/AcA/TTSD/TSS of 02 June 2015 is hereby terminated with immediate effect,” read part of the termination letter, signed by the Vice-Chancellor of UB, Professor Ngomo Horace Manga. He noted that his termination was, among other considerations, motivated by the unanimous verdict of members of the Disciplinary Council, which Agbor Nkongho boycotted.

After receiving the letter of termination of contract, Agbor Nkongho told this reporter that he was already discussing with his lawyers the possibility of dragging UB to court.

“We shall end in the court. I prefer that [the university] should also win me there…I am already discussing it with my lawyers”, he said confidently, and would not comment further.

Agbor Nkongho has been ejected from the Unversity for setting an examination question on the Anglophone Crisis, on a course (Law 243) he was teaching titled “Political and Constitutional History of Cameroon.” He was teaching in the Department of English Law.

He had been summoned to appear on Wednesday May 6 before the Disciplinary Council of the University of Buea for a hearing on allegations levelled against him “for non-compliance of professional obligations for a question you set on law 243,titled Political & Constitutional History of Cameroon, during the 2019/2020first semester examination”, but he boycotted the sitting and instead sent a protest letter to the University justifying his decision not to honour the summons in person.

In his reply to the summons, Agbor Nkongho stated that legal provisions in force for inviting a teacher before the Disciplinary Council were not respected.

“An invitation for a teacher to appear before a disciplinary panel must be preceded by the respect of certain statutory provisions. There are a set of decrees and ministerial circulars entrenched to govern and regulate disciplinary proceedings involving university teachers”, wrote the lawyer/instructor in his protest letter, citing the legal provisions to buttress his point.

But speaking anonymously to this reporter, one of the most senior officials at the University of Buea, said: “Mr Agbor’s [arguments] are null and void. Those provisions he cites do not apply to him. They apply to lecturers. But he is an instructor whose contract expired in 2019.”

Questioned why the instructor was still working in the university if his contract had actually ended, the source retorted, “The University was just too kind and polite to invite him to the disciplinary council. Agbor Balla’s contract as instructor expired in 2019.It has not been renewed and shall not be renewed!”

The Vice-Chancellor of University of Buea, Professor Horace Manga terminated Agbor Nkongho’s contract, following pressure mounted on him by the Minister of State for Higher Education, Professor Jacques Fame Ndongo, to check the instructor’s alleged unprofessional activities on campus.

Following is the controversial exam question that led to Agbor Nkongho’s contract termination: “The Anglophone crisis since 2016 was caused by lawyers’ and teachers’ strikes. Assess the validity of this statement.(4O marks).

The said course exam was successfully written and evaluated-and students validated it; but it is unclear whether the UB administration will cancel the course exam and another exam set, now that the instructor has been sent away.

The exam question on Anglophone crisis pushed authorities to think that Agbor Nkongho might have been radicalizing the students he was teaching.

But he has maintained that before the summons, which led to the termination of his contract, he had never been queried by any official of the institution.

“I have never been accused by the University authorities of politicizing my lectures or any activity there”, he said.

It would be recalled that Barrister Agbor Nkongho was President of Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium(CACSC), which coordinated civil disobedience and peaceful anti-government protests in 2016 and early 201, as a way of forcing the Cameroon government grant and protect the rights of minority English-speaking Cameroonians, who have complained of gross marginalization for decades.

The 2016 anti-government protests morphed into what is today known as the Anglophone crisis.

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Barrister Agbor Nkongho may sue University of Buea over termination of his teaching contract.