The Making of a Scientist

By Jacob Mbua Ngeve PhD FCAS

The author recounts his educational career and his professional career. He documents his various achievements which brought him to the limelight to be named Director General, a Presidential appointee. He feels that if he was able to go that far, any person who is determined enough and has the ambition to do so can do it also. He recounts the temptation he had with his boss which eventually led to his being fired from his post. He concludes by saying that it was better to resist temptation than do something that could jeopardize his reputation and get him into trouble.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664249950

Jacob Mbua Ngeve PhD FCAS

The author wants to inspire young scientists that they can make it if he has been able to make it as a scientist under difficult circumstances.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 Jacob Mbua Ngeve, PhD, FCAS.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

844-714-3454

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4994-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4993-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4995-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021923239

Manufactured in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 03/28/2022

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Introduction

Part I WELCOME TO CAMEROON

Chapter 1 Government School Molyko

Chapter 2 Cameroon Baptist Academy

Chapter 3 Cameroon College of Arts, Science and Technology

Chapter 4 National College of Agriculture

Chapter 5 The trip through TRIP

Part II THE AMERICAN DREAM

Chapter 6 Coming to America

Chapter 7 University of Georgia

Chapter 8 University of Maryland

Chapter 9 Awarded PhD

Part III THE IRAD STORY

Chapter 10 Cameroon National Root Crops Improvement Program (CNRCIP)

Chapter 11 IRAF Nyombe with Kurt Steiner

Chapter 12 IRAF Nkolbisson with Hermann Pfeiffer

Chapter 13 Step I: Assistant Research Officer

Chapter 14 Step II: Research Officer

Chapter 15 Step III: Senior Research Officer

Chapter 16 Step IV: Chief Research Officer

Chapter 17 Fellowship in the Cameroon Academy of Sciences

Part IV INFORMAL EDUCATION

Chapter 18 International assignments

Chapter 19 Knowledge from tourism

Chapter 20 Learning from mentoring

Chapter 21 Israel: Regenerative Agriculture

Part V PUBLISHING IN SCIENCE

Chapter 22 Growing up in the Research

Chapter 23 Publishing successfully in science

Chapter 24 Cameroon Journal of Agricultural Science

Chapter 25 International Society for Tropical Root Crops

Part VI INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS

Chapter 26 IITA

Chapter 27 RRPMC

Chapter 28 EPHTA and the CIRAD story

Chapter 29 NCRE

Part VII THE MAKING OF A SCIENTIST

Chapter 30 Challenges as a scientist

Chapter 31 Managing budgets

Chapter 32 Health challenges

Chapter 33 What does it take to make a scientist?

Epilogue

THE MAKING OF

A SCIENTIST

He is a Cameroon-born American scientist who devoted his entire life and his extraordinary capacity to conduct agricultural research, assessing impact and evaluating rural development projects to save his country and his African continent from hunger. He brought the Institute of Agricultural Research for Development back from the brink and in the process became a scientific and management celebrity and a man many thought was being groomed to be named cabinet minister. Now in the Making of a Scientist, Jacob Mbua Ngeve shows us the progress of a remarkable Cameroonian who opens his personal files on an extraordinary life of survival and triumph that took him to nearly all of Africa visiting farmers, technicians, scientists and research administrators which made him come to represent not only one of Cameroon’s most powerful and successful chief executives but the symbol of honesty and reputation.

Being raised by a single parent and the son of parents who did not have any formal school education, Jacob Mbua Ngeve, certainly had emotional pressures of his youth; a product of Rev. Quiggle’s Cameroon Baptist Academy, he rose from a research technician spectacularly through the ranks of the Institute of Agricultural Research for Development to become its Director General, a Presidential appointee, only to be knocked down because of ministerial greed after two years of loyal service to his country, an event that almost shattered him and his family. Jacob Mbua Ngeve did not get discouraged. With the assistance and support of a loving wife, Hannah Ngombi, he continued a normal hardworking life by contributing to Africa’s growth and rural development through consultancies in many countries of Africa, building from experience in pursuing double study programs in CCAST, NCA Bambili, Georgia and Maryland as well as climbing every stage of some forty years in agricultural research, and still finding a past-time of following up his real estate ventures which he loved so much. He made his name a symbol of integrity which many Africans know and trust.

Continued on back flap

Now, in his own little way, Jacob Mbua Ngeve gives the facts on:

• the steps a resourceless orphan made it through Molyko, Muyuka, Bambili, Georgia and Maryland to attain the summit of academics;

• how a mere technician, "from nowhere to somewhere" worked his way to becoming a full professor;

• how he changed agricultural research as a workplace which could bring benefit to the African farmer;

• the way his career was shaped by his determination and commitment to improve the life of the growers of Africa;

• how proper financial management in IRAD brought respect and reputation from a dying institution into a booming paradise.

Apart from an amazing personal success story in IRAD, Jacob Mbua Ngeve offers a thorough thought-provoking assessment of agricultural research and management in Africa which is illustrated with solid examples from his own personal career in research, impact assessment, project evaluation and university teaching. He shows the to-be managers how to run an agricultural institution and how to withstand the horrors of temptation from bosses and politicians. Jacob Mbua Ngeve believes that every manager can make it if he has the determination and will power to go through the hurdles of dipping hands in company pockets but instead harnessing the required effort in planning, organizing, influencing and controlling business in an atmosphere of competition and temptation.

The Making of a Scientist is a unique book written by a unique African. Jacob Mbua Ngeve is a spectacular, fascinating and candid self-portrait of a uniquely African life revealed with all talents and contradictions, recounted openly in his own honest and recognizable voice, which should serve as an invaluable addition to agricultural management in a developing country.

Image1.JPGImage2.JPGImage3.JPGImage4.JPGImage5.JPGImage6.JPGImage7.JPGImage8.JPGImage9.JPGImage10.JPGImage11.JPGImage12.JPGImage13.JPGImage14.JPGImage15.JPGImage16.JPGImage17.JPGImage18.JPGImage19.JPGImage20.JPG

DEDICATION

To Yaya Etonde (my mother), who first inspired in me the desire to know, and whose foresight has continued to guide me in my pursuit of science.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In acknowledgements, authors are in the habit of thanking people who helped them in writing the book. But since this is an autobiography, I will start by thanking people who helped me with my life – the true friends who helped me when the sail of the ship was tearing apart, those who rescued me to the shore, and those who prolongued my life, through the mighty hands of God. The first of these people is Dr Grace Enanga Mbonde. Dr Grace, I sincerely wish to thank you for contributing in extending my life. I thought all was over. I would have been an amputee. But you never left me loose. You are certainly a wonderful person, and that is why God passed through you to rescue me from drowning. I also want to thank Hannah Njeke Ngombi, my wife, for being there for me throughout my turbulent days in IRAD, and keeping me comfortable for my entire life till now that I have accomplished this project. My elder sisters Sophie Nduma Ngeve, Christiana Enanga Monjowa Ngeve, and younger siblings Rebecca Efosi Ngeve and Emmanuel Ngeve all played substantial roles in making me succeed in life. My sincere thanks go to them. Cheryl-Ann Beverly Baptiste, Patricia Victoria Robinson, Christie Nalova Ngenye, Patience Ndobe Halle, Genevieve Nnam Mua, and the kids (David Ikome, Celestina Etonde, Magdalene Namondo, Lovett Eko, Eugene Ngale, Sally-Irene Joso, Ryan-Einstein Ndive, Franklin Ngenye, Smith Molua, Herschel Nyoki, Hansel Nalionge, Bridget Nduma, Teddy-Faith Mafany, Christiana Enanga Monjowa and Dyphna Efosi all played their roles faithfully in keeping the atmosphere conducive during my hectic days in the USA and IRAD, for bearing my absence during my multiple trips abroad as a consultant, and during the times when I thought life was over.

The Cameroon Government educated me through elementary school in Molyko, in Cameroon Baptist Academy (CBA), in the Cameroon College of Arts, Science and Technology (CCAST) and in the National College of Agriculture. Late Rev. Milton Donald Quiggle and the American Baptist Associates took over most of the funding of my studies in CBA. The International Development Research Center (IDRC) of Canada and the Belgian Agency for Cooperation in Development (AGCD) provided funding for my university education in Georgia and Maryland. My study funds were ably managed by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), for which I am really indebted. I have always told friends about how lucky I have been to have had my education without paying a dime. It is the time to formally acknowledge the kindness of these two countries for educating me. Other sponsors would have required students they sponsor to study in their own countries. But Canada and Belgium waived that, and let me study in the country of my choice. It was a wonderful opportunity these countries gave me to experience the American dream. I sincerely acknowledge their support for making me a scientist, the great person I have become in the society.

My mentors did a wonderful job in making me grow. The first person in this regard is Late Dr Simon Ngale Lyonga, coordinator for Root Crops Research. You may not be here now but you are certainly reading the fruit of your labor. You fathered me, trained me, chose what I had to do in life, helped me achieve the goals you set for me, and guided me all through my professional life. My regards go to you wherever you may be.

Dr Jacques-Paul Eckebil, my Chief of Center in IRA Njombe and later my Director in the Institute of Agronomic Research (IRA) wanted to see me become a more organized and respectful person in life. You mentored me, gave me facilities to grow and gave me the confidence that I would go places.

Dr Ronald Wayne Roncadori first taught me science and how to become a scientist. You taught me the scientific method and how to place a greenhouse experiment, a growth chamber trial, collect data and write a paper. You gave me the inspiration that a scientist does not just do scientific work for the sake of doing it, but to make a contribution to posterity. If I learnt nothing from you, at least I learnt how to write and publish successfully in science.

Late Dr Bruno Quebedeau recruited me in the University of Maryland for my doctoral studies. Without you I probably would not have found myself in Maryland.

Finally, Dr John Calvin Bouwkamp served as my last and famous scientific father, supervising me though the PhD program. I learnt much from you – the statistics, use of useful software for data analysis and the sacrifice you made in plying with me on those rough roads in ondulating topography and landscape, and the risk you took flying for twelve hours to visit my experiments in Cameroon. I appreciate your friendship and comfort as a friend and father.

I am also grateful to Dr Wiley Garrett (extension plant pathologist and department chair), Dr Richard Hanlin (mycologist), Dr Floyd Hendrix and Dr Bill Powell (pathologists) and my genetics teachers in Georgria (Dr Arthur Fleming, Dr Brown and Dr Henry Boerma) and Maryland (Drs Battino and Marla McIntorsh) for the instruction that molded me to become a scientist. Thanks also go to my good friends in Georgia (John McBride) and Maryland (Joe Kuti) for being there for me when I felt isolated as the only black student in class. Your camaraderie made the atmosphere conducive for sustained academic work as I battled with the American system of education.

PROLOGUE

What you are about to read now is the story of a man who has been successful in becoming a scientist. A senior colleague once said,This is Ngeve, from nowhere to somewhere. It has been a long, lonely and frustrating journey. I consider my book to be an inspiration to those who want to succeed. If Ngeve could make it, every aspiring person would make it too. The first ingredient in the soup of success is ambition. The second is hardwork. The rest will fall in place like a jig-saw puzzle.

When I started school in Molyko, I was not too sure I was going to make it. School fees were paid at the time and my mother, Yaya Etonde, was struggling to sponsor the first three of us at the same time. She finally succeeded in making Sophie, Christie and me to go through elementary school well. The teachers in Molyko, especially Mr Itor, Mr Mbwange Eko, Mr Ashu, Miss Luma and Mrs Onga, as well as the student teachers of the Baptist Teacher Training College gave me the best they could and that molded me into what I became when the time reached for me to do secondary education. What they taught me in rural science, nature study and hygiene, English and arithmentic prepared me for a career in natural sciences, winning certificates of cleverness all through my elementary school career. I am glad that I received that foundation from them. It was really helpful in making me what I am today.

When I finished my primary school in Molyko, I thought life was over – no father, a struggling mother, barely having what to eat, always dressed in shorts reduced from my late dad’s trousers, no shoes, wearing a starched green shirt and ironed khaki shorts (our Molyko school uniform) for Christmas and New Year festivities – with all hopes shattered in the air. That was me surviving through the consoling words of a very loving mother, Yaya Sarah Etonde Mosoke. Yaya (who did not go to school herself) strongly believed that, in the absence of a father, I would succeed in this world only through having an education. I did.

I was fortunate to get the sympathy of Rev Milton Quiggle who fetched me scholarships not only from the American Baptist Associates but also from the Cameroon Government which both enabled me to sail through secondary school. I had finished Molyko well, as an outstanding student, but the future was obscure and bleak because I knew my mother did not have the resources to send me further. But a philanthropist came to my rescue and took a drowning child back to the shore. I received a sound secondary education which I never on earth would have received. Because I needed a strong foundation in life when I got accepted in Cameroon Baptist Academy, I embraced everything there was to study. The good teachers, most of them barely older than me (Maggie Gang, Ako Mengot, Patrick Tamambang, Solomon Orok Tambe, Edward Mokam, Lovett Elango, Makepeace Besong, and Mr and Mrs Thomas poured all the knowledge they could in Literature, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, English, Biology, History and Georgraphy, which molded me, organized my thoughts and gave me the opportunity to think of a career in the natural sciences, at the same time broadening my scope of communicating effectively in society.

I learnt sewing from Mr Mbeng-Song, and typewriting from Ms Williams, which would help me enormously in later life in the making of a scientist. I still owe them an immense debt of gratitude.

When I completed from CBA and I found myself in the Cameroon College of Arts, Science and Technology (CCAST), that was a small additional step for man but a giant leap for mankind. I was surprised that I had finally reached the prestigious junior college which had before then been reserved for children of affluent people. I met Mrs Thomas again to pour biology in my brain, Mr Nkofu to drill me in Chemistry and Mr Tima to ground me in Physics.

While in CCAST I was able to do two programs in the sciences and a diploma in agriculture in the National College of Agriculture (NCA). The load was heavy, very heavy indeed, but I had the ambition to get as much knowledge as possible. I finally obtained the GCE A/L and an agricultural technician’s diploma almost at the same time, thanks to the encouragement of a mentor like Simon Lyonga. I will for ever be grateful to him.The agriculture program in NCA gave me the background I came to use in plant sciences when I went to the University in the USA.

The one year I spent in the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) prior to my going to the USA gave me the opportunity to meet nice scientists like Sidki Sadik and George Ayernor, who opened my mind widely, made me develop full interest in agricultural sciences. I am grateful for meeting Sang Ki Hahn, Eugene Terry, and James Abaka-Whyte who gave me formal baptism in root crops research, and Wade Reeves for religious and moral support and encouragement while at IITA.

I finally found myself in the USA for university studies where I had the education in the place I had always considered my own Promised Land. Then I made a successful educational career in the USA. The seventeen graduate courses in Georgia gave me the broad background in plant genetics, plant pathology and statistics, the key areas which made me the scientist that I finally became. I met many good people in Georgia. Names like Ronald Roncadori, Cedric Kuhn, Everett Luttrell, Floyd Hendrix, Bill Powell and Richard Hanlin still linger in my brain when I think of the good time I had in school there.

The doctoral program in Maryland was certainly complementary to the background I had acquired in Georgia and I am glad to have met nice people like Bruno Quebedeaux, and John Bouwkamp who brought me up to Maryland and steered my PhD work from beginning to the end. They encouraged me when things were rough and gave me the moral support I needed to sail through the academic hurdles that came my way.

My career in the Institute of Agricultural Research for Development (IRAD) started as a field technician. I worked for Kurt Steiner in Njombe and for Hermann Pfeiffer in Nkolbisson. I was not satisfied with the responsibilities I had as a field technician, and wanted one day to work independently as a scientist. I had acquired the required training in the USA, returned to Cameroon to serve my home country. I was able to grow up the rungs of the scientific ladder to become a Chief Research Officer, mentoring many young scientists in the making. The glory goes to mentors like Drs Simon Ngale Lyonga and Jacques-Paul Eckebil.

I became groomed in the Cameroon research administration and after several positions as department directors, I worked my way up to becoming Director General of the Institute of Agricultural Research for Development (IRAD), a Presidential appointee, of the biggest agricultural research institute in Central Africa, controlling 1200 workers, including 300 MS-PhD scientists. I had reached the tip of Mount Fako, as many would consider IRAD to be.

On September 12, 2011, I was fired from my position of Director General of IRAD due to no fault of mine. I was not disobedient to hierarchy but just being supportive of morality. I had been Director General for barely two years, after rendering loyal services to my institute for thirty-four years. I had done my best, but the system did not favour me. Till now I do not regret that I lost the position because it gave me the fame and recognition that one would have if one decided to stand by one’s words.

That fateful day I was signing salaries and a few important mission orders, sending scientists out in the field, when a worker stepped into my office. DG, I see people standing in small groups discussing what is really unpleasant to me. It looks like they are talking about you. Have you heard anything? I said no. If that is the case I do not want to be the source of the information. Then the phone rang, a director of one of my remote research centers was calling. DG, what am I hearing? I do not think you are hearing anything. If that is the case, then I do not want to be the one to give you the breaking news. Then he dropped. My Director of Administration and Financial Affairs, Gerald Motanga, who was discussing some files with me, stepped out and made a few calls. He came back, nodding his head, DG you have been replaced. I heaved a huge sigh of relief. I said to myself, this struggle is finally over. My wife was calling me on the phone when my driver stepped into my office. She said, "Jacob, you have been replaced. I am coming to help you pack your personal belongings out of the office. My driver was ready to drive me out of my office to my house for the last time. Then as we went down the staircase, two mililary police officers, gendarmes as they are called, met with me on the staircase; they were coming to make sure I did not take anything that belonged to the institute, as one worker had told them in a phone call.

It was a big relief for me and the entire family. My family had suffered tremendously during my final, turbulent months in IRAD and that filled me with rage. Perhaps my inability to succumb to instructions I considered immoral from my boss made me responsible for my fate. What about my wife and children? What did they do to suffer that way? The burden of grief was too heavy to bear throughout the last one year when I was undergoing this stress. They were the innocent victims of a persistent boss, whose budgetivorous ambition was indescribable. Till today, my family still continues to feel the pain. Lena BigStuff made my kids suffer, and for that reason I will never forgive her.

I told my cabinet staff to pack out and take the day off. They were sad but they did.

The next day, after breakfast, I relaxed in the veranda of my house where I usually received guests. IRAD staff kept flowing in to condole with me. Many came to console me, others possibly to see how I would behave after losing my job. The houseboy, my chef, would come out and serve them with drinks as he usually did. This was probably the last time he was rendering me service.

As I sat receiving visitors, I did not know what my life was going to be like. But I was comforted by the fact that the IRAD staff knew everything that had been going on between me and my Minister. Everyone must have anticipated the sequelae, but was not sure of the time when the bomb would fall.

Some had alerted the media, or they had seen the Cameroon Tribune newspaper that carried the appointment of my replacement. I had been deposed. A group of journalists of the private press stopped by for an interview. I was scotched and tired. I did not want to say much. When they asked me the question, How do you feel, Mr DG? all I told them was that I was wishing IRAD the best, and my replacement good luck as he continued with the baton of command.

Phone calls started pouring in from abroad. The first person who called me was Dr Jacques-Paul Eckebil, who had been my mentor throughout my stay in IRAD. He comforted me and said this: Jacob, it is better to stand by your words than to engage yourself in immoral deals which your conscience cannot tolerate. He wished me well and told me he would be ready at any time to send letters of recommendations on my behalf whenever there was need to do so.

In life, there are ups and downs. This was my own down. I was fifty six. I had lived a very successful professional life. I was financially secure. I had built a home in Yaounde where I would eventually move into. I had also built a house in my home village of Bova II which needed just the finishings to be habitable. I had personal cars to ensure mobility. I could afford to just stay at home, rest and feed on my retirement savings and salary which although small were big enough to take care of my daily subsistence, pay my bills, hire a housemaid to serve me in the house and a guard for the compound. I would not have two guards in the day and two in the night as before when I was in activity, but I would have a guard at night to watch the compound as I slept.

An idea that I finally settled with was that despite what had happened, and the terribly depressed state of mind, I would pick up the pieces and carry on.

Although I was full of anger, and had developed hypertension (from 120/75 to 135/90) I was also glad the burden of grief had been taken away.This meant I could live a normal life again without bothering about phone calls from my Minister, and receiving financial requests from her that I could not meet. My wife gave me comfort that life had to continue. I was now known in the root crops networks in and out of the country. I was known in the African region. The services I had rendered the scientific community in Central and West Africa had been much appreciated. I could continue this line of activities as a consultant. That would give me satisfaction, make me mentally alert and enable me to make some coins that would supplement my retirement income.

My wife started packing. We had a maximum of three months to stay in the DG’s residence. We planned to move out before that time. But even before the end of the third month, my boss Lena sent police to evict me from the house. We had started moving, but the entrance into the home had not been paved. We hurriedly moved into our private home in spite of the work that was left to be completed. Installing water and electricity, paving the compound and arranging the driveway were all done when we were already settled in our own home in Nkolbisson.

I have a sense of accomplishment. I made my contribution to agricultural research and development in Cameroon and in Africa, mentoring several young scientists in the making, improving agricultural systems in central Africa, making many useful acquaintances, and touching many lives in the process. I believe I still remain in the minds of colleagues and peers in Africa as one whose contribution to root crops research has been substantial. When I finally left IRAD I had to look elsewhere. The international community gladly welcomed me and life went on.

I can now say that with much determination, accompanied by luck and a supportive wife, I was able to rise up from the ashes and live again. Now listen to my story about the making of a scientist.

INTRODUCTION

How do you make a scientist? Not by striding through three or four years in a university to obtain a Bachelor of Science degree, but by the additional five, six, seven or eight years that you have to spend in graduate school to obtain a Masters and a Doctorate degree, the tools required for the long apprenticeship which one undergoes to learning the science trade. It is usually a long, lonely and sometimes frustrating road. Exactly what happens during this period of apprenticeship that transforms a frightened, helpless A/L novice into a capable and confident scientist?

This question is often not easy to answer. The transformation process is very slow. It is marked by triumph in some cases and failures in others; frustration in some moments, and happiness in others; you make errors in some trials, and correct them in others. The whole process is made up of small improvements, in a step by step manner, all along the way. But the time comes when it is all over, when the scientific training is accomplished, and the scientist is turned loose to practice his trade. At this moment, somehow he is ready. He has to be. He is at the mercy of the scientific community. Everyone listens to him for he is, or is supposed to be, a master in his field; people expect the best from him and rely heavily on his judgements.

Nearly every scientist travels the same general path. It is known as the BMD system (or LMD in French). It was started some years ago, when British and American universities started developing academic specialization programs. The system has persisted somehow, with minor modifications, since that time. All universities, which are authorized to train people who would eventually become scientists, must have an approved program which follows that plan. The authorization is usually given by the state ministry of education, or ministry of higher education, or by Charter of the State. Whatever the case, formal approval is given before a university starts operating a graduate program. It is known that the first doctorate degree was conferred by the University of Bologna (Italy), several centuries ago. The notion of a doctorate at that time must be different from what it is today. Programs have evolved; more meat has been added to the skeleton of university education to make things more palatable, or rather more complex.

Briefly, the BMD program consists of three to four years of courses leading to the award of the Bachelor of Science degree, two to three years of coursework and research leading to a Master of Science degree, and three to six years of coursework and research leading to a Doctor of Philosophy degree. Usually, the Bachelor’s program does not require a thesis. However, in some countries, bachelors students are required to do a research project which culminates in a project report or ‘memoire’ which is submitted to the university and may or may not be defended by the student in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree. The project report prepares students for scientific enquiry, which is often useful when the student eventually enters graduate (or postgraduate) school to pursue a Masters or Doctorate degree.

Graduate academic programs, although generally alike in that they are supposed to follow this three stage system, may differ greatly from country to country. The many countries in the world all want to have their own educational system capable of training their citizens for their local job market. Recently, of course, countries have started feeling the need to qualify their nationals along international lines in a bid to prepare them for competition with other country nationals for the international job market.

With this background in mind, we generally recognize two major systems: the British (or Anglo-saxon) system and the American system. Even in these two systems there are several variations in the time spent for a degree and the content of the degree program itself as you leave from country to the other in the world. The French, for instance, had a five stage system – Licence, Maîtrise, Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies, Doctorat de Troisième Cycle and Doctorat d’Etat, but they have recently adopted the three stage system - Licence, Maîtrise, Doctorat (LMD), so nearly all of their universities are now operating on this LMD system. To make the matter less complicated, I would use the two widely recognized systems to elucidate educational training leading to the Doctor of Philosophy degree, the tool that serves as prerequisite in the making of a scientist.

In the British system, coursework usually ends at the level of the Bachelors degree. The second degree in this system is a one to two-year Master of Science (MSc) degree. For some courses, some universities in the British system offer the Master of Philosophy (MPhil) degree as a research Masters degree after the Bachelor of Science degree. The MPhil degree precedes the Doctoral degree. Usually, the MPhil requires more in-depth research achievement than the MSc degree. At the graduate school (or post-graduate school, as it is called in the British system), there may be some courses taken, but in general, emphasis is placed on field and laboratory research, the candidate being given the opportunity of delivering and participating in research seminars every now and then until he has accumulated enough data to write up a thesis (or dissertation) which may or may not be defended to obtain the degree.

Some schools may not require the candidate to defend the thesis and will be satisfied by the certification by the major professor or supervisor that the student has satisfactorily completed university requirements; the authority is then given for the award of the PhD degree to the candidate. Some candidates completing the Bachelors degree program may be admitted directly into the Doctorate program, so that the candidate, at the completion of his university education, ends up with a BSc, PhD. The British system considers the PhD a research degree, and does not see the need for formal classroom education in the form of courses at this level. Some African universities in former British colonies (Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Malawi, for example) have adopted this system, depending on whether their university programs were developed with the assistance or in partnership with a British university.

The American system, on the other hand, has three stages – BS, MS and PhD, and in every stage the candidate has to take a series of courses as part of the degree program. In a few university departments, the department may assess the undergraduate program that the candidate has had and judge that he/she is ripe to get into a PhD program directly. Although research is still the main emphasis in both MS and PhD levels in the US system, proponents of this system argue that science evolves so rapidly that there is always new knowledge generated every year which the student needs to be aware of to enable him/her to interpret research data intelligently and function properly as a scientist. In addition to formal coursework in the classroom, where the candidate receives lectures, conducts lab practical exercises, writes examinations in a continuous assessment system, the student writes also project and research reports, and is compelled as part of his training to give and participate in research seminars which are considered an intergral part of the learning process and an opportunity to learn what others are doing. This helps the students to develop their scope of reasoning and learn how to speak in public.

There is great difference of opinion among scientists as to which type of educational program produces the best scientists. Usually the views are prejudiced by the system in which the scientist has studied. American-trained scientists argue that the individual who has received his education in the British system does not have the knowledge of biochemistry, physiology and statistics which a good scientist is supposed to have to research effectively and interpret research findings appropriately. They maintain that all the British-trained scientist can do is function like a technician – peg a field, plant maize, fertilize it and harvest cobs. The British-trained scientists, on the other hand, argue that although the American-trained scientist may know all there is to know about quantitative trait loci, he can hardly establish an experiment with good field plot technique. The fact is that either type of educational program produces excellent scientists. Both systems work.

I had my education in the American system, in two huge predominantly white universities – the University of Georgia in Athens for the BS and MS degrees, and the University of Maryland at College Park, for the PhD. Both institutions had produced great men; I thought I too should be one of them.

The University of Georgia is located in Athens, in Northern Georgia. It was incorporated by an act of the General Assembly of the State of Georgia on January 27, 1785. Georgia became the first state to charter a state-supported university in North America. In 1784 the General Assembly had set aside 40,000 acres of land to endow a college or seminary of learning to provide strong training in classical studies.

The university was actually established in 1801 but graduated its first class in 1804. In 1872 it received funds from the federal government to begin instruction in agriculture and mechanical arts.

Athens was an old university town when I was there. The city had a population of 77000 people when I went there in 1979. At an elevation of 800 feet above sea level, it is sheltered from much of the extreme weather of the winter season with a mean temperature for January, the coldest month, being 43oF, and for July, the warmest month, temperatures go up to 79oF. Athens has an average annual precipitation of 50.42 inches.

During the school term, the city was usually full with people but would become virtually empty during the holidays when kids went home for the vacation break. As education advanced, faculties were added to the initial liberal arts curriculum and mandate. The university has since grown to become one of the main centres of academic excellence in the nation.

The University of Georgia, Athens, may compare with other major universities in the country – University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, NC State at Raleigh, Iowa State and UC Davis – but it has a personality of its own, and that personality influences the education of any scientist who spends some five years or so within its walls.

The University of Maryland at College Park where I did my Doctor of Philosophy degree program was the main campus of the University System of Maryland, which includes the University of Maryland at Baltimore, the University of Maryland at Eastern Shore and the University of Maryland at University College, an adult education arm of the university system. The College Park campus is located just a short drive from Silver Springs, Maryland, and a ten minute drive from the Washington DC Metropolis.

This is what brings me to the point I want to make in this book. This is the story of the making of a scientist. It is the story of a universal experience in one sense, because every individual who finally calls himself a scientist passes through that BMD general path. But the experience is unique in that it is the story of a particular scientist, trained in a particular educational program, in a particular institution, at a particular time. I hope that the experiences I am going to relate in this book will portray to the reader the idea of what must happen to any individual before he reaches the time in his life when society, his friends, his peers and his subordinates, are willing, and perhaps have the obligation, to call him a scientist.

I graduated from the university several years ago, some twenty four years or so. Things may have changed by now, and things may be done in an entirely different way nowadays. University departments have merged because of budget cuts, and new courses have been added to various scientific programs to meet the challenges of modern times. Names of faculties have also changed to reflect the present state of affairs. Also lobby tactics for research funding and moves to attract better qualified candidates and faculty may also have changed. But I navigate the internet much too often these days to give myself the belief that they have not. Since I left the university I have made and still make frequent trips to my former schools in the USA which give me the assurance that things are generally the way I left them.

To many the USA is still ‘The Promised Land,’ the land of opportunity. The names and faces have changed. But the problems leading to the making of a scientist have not. The experience is still the universal one I had. Every individual wanting to start to travel that path still starts naïvely, more like a novice, and as time progresses he is forced to face the many challenges I went through for the many years I spent to become a scientist. There are several rungs in the ladder. Each must be climbed, step by step, in no hurry. You may falter and fall, but you get up on your feet and continue. There is almost a constant consolation which individuals about to start the trail have, that is that others have travelled that road, that others have made it and that with time and patience they too can. It is also consolatory to have at the back of your mind that those who have travelled that road will be prepared to help you every step of the way.

All that has actually been added to the would-be scientist is more problems. With the advent of genetic engineering and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), scientists now have to bother about the likely negative effects that they can cause in the erosion of landraces which are the ingredients of genetic manipulation of crops and animals.The would-be scientist should now have to worry about the possible dependence on foreign seed supply to prop the agriculture of his developing country which he is trying to build.What an issue if it came to the situation that GMO seed of important commodities like maize, soybean and cotton had to be imported every year from a seed company in a developed country?

Scientists have the responsibility of dispelling the fears in the local population about the health problems associated with transgenic organisms and their products. Alongside these are the worries of invasive alien species. Scientists have to deal with problems that have arisen from the illicit introduction of these organisms into the country, their identification and effects in the community and the environment, assessment of the risks associated with them, and a whole gamut of issues and international politics relating to the importance and suitability of ‘transgenics’ in food security. Because of the several emerging issues in food safety, scientific training has become more complex and advanced. Scientists of the older generation have had to be retrained in modern techniques to cope with the new trends in technology. It has complicated rather than facilitated the making of a scientist.

Now, watching young men and women enter the university to graduate some eight years or so later with a doctorate degree and then seeing them delve into research to become scientists, I still find it impossible to mark the exact points of transition. I can only say what I said earlier – there are no giant steps. The making of a scientist is a tedious, long, lonely and sometimes frustrating process. The man, or better still the woman, who passes through the four walls of a university and suffers through that experience for ten years or so taking and passing tests, and then living that sleepless life for several years thereafter climbing the rungs of the professional ladder to become a scientist will never forget the experience. I never have.

PART I

WELCOME TO CAMEROON

CHAPTER 1

Government School Molyko

When I was growing up in Bokwai and Muea, we were brought up the hard way. A child needed to be a school lover and had to be focused enough to make it through school. Many things were unavailable to us that modern-day children have. First, there was no electric power to light up houses and streets. We went to bed early, sometimes as early as six if we did not have storytelling sessions from our grand mother and grand father that would take us through part of the night.

In the southwest region, for instance, the electricity supply was reserved for big cities like Buea and Limbe. The only source of electric power supply came from the Yoke River Hydroelectric Power Station in the town of Yoke, near Muyuka. I now believe the output from that dam was inadequate to power the entire anglophone part of the country, but electricity supply was constant in those cities that were powered. In the northwest region, I think the cities had coal-generated electricity, which was still not strong enough to power the rural areas.The French part of the country had its own electric power supply. Most of it came from the Sanaga River dam in Edea. The Edea dam was located near the bauxite-processing aluminum factory (a major power consumer) there in Edea.

Later, the Yoke power station was shut down, and electricity of the region was supplied by the French company Electricité Du Cameroun (EDC), later renamed Société National d’Electricité (SONEL) and later AES-SONEL when the company was bought by Americans.

The Sanaga River dam was later supplemented by the Songloulou dam to increase rural electricity supply in the francophone part of the country. Actually, it had been speculated that electricity could be generated from the Mentchum Falls in Wum in the northwest region, and that this supply would suffice for the region and even supply enough energy to be sold to nearby Nigeria, which was experiencing massive electric outages. The project of exploiting that source has never been executed.

We who grew up in rural areas did our reading during the day. At night if we had to read or do assignments, we would use kerosene-fueled bush lamps or lanterns. Sometimes we would manufacture bush lamps ourselves. Any container that had a lid served as our lamp. I would use a nail to make a hole in the lid of the bottle or can. Then I would use a piece of folded cloth to serve as my wick. I would put kerosene in the container to power the lamp. The wick was any strip of porous material through which liquid fuel, in this case kerosene, was drawn up by capillary action to the flame at its tip. That was the lamp with which I did my reading at night. If I had to move to another part of the village on a rough path, I would use my bush lamp as my source of illumination.

There could be risks with the fuel used. One day after I had come back from school, I realized I had a homework assignment to do that night. I used a container that had been used by my uncle Mola Eko to buy petrol (gasoline fuel) when his motorcycle ran out of fuel. I bought kerosene from the roadside and poured it into my locally made lamp. When I lit the lamp at night, it caught fire. I sustained a burn in my right elbow. My mother treated the burn with a local herb and tied the wound with a bandage made from a torn shirt. In the morning she took me to the Muea dispensary, the only health facility available to us, where it was treated with iodine. I was healed after about two weeks, but I still have a scar in that arm to this day. Each time I see it, I remember the poor conditions under which I was raised.

I also did childhood experimentation every now and then. One day I picked up supposedly dead torch batteries from the street, arranged them in series, and connected them to a torch bulb. I had light, a much better light than my bush lamp. I was very happy for the invention. But the light did not last for long; the dry cell batteries soon died completely three days later.

I still believe that the bad sight that I later had when I was in secondary school, which led me to have prescribed corrective lenses, could have been a result of early eye strain when I was in elementary school. In spite of that, I read and passed my exams, and I am a scientist today.

Secondly, I grew up in an area where there was no pipe-borne water supply. The only water source for bathing and drinking were two springs—the Koke River and Jondi River. The Koke River had its origin in a set of rocks about a mile from Bokwai village. The source of the spring was used for drinking while the outflow was used for bathing. There were actually two springs in the same place separated by just a small bush. The bigger spring was reserved for women whereas the small spring was for men. The villagers of Bokwai shared the streams in that manner. The small bush gave the women their privacy when they bathed. God alone knows why cholera and the other communicable waterborne diseases spared us.

The Jondi River was the source of drinking water for the entire town of Muea. The head of the spring supplied drinking water, while the outflow served for bathing and washing of clothes. The women bathed in the upper part of the river while the men bathed in the lower part of the river. It was certainly inhygienic, but that was the only water source available to a large part of the town. The outflow of the Koke River passed through Muea, but it was only used for bathing and washing of clothes given that it was flowing through other villages on its way to Muea. There was not much privacy when the river flowed through Muea, except that some parts of the river were used by women while other parts were used by men. But a man visiting Muea would not know the different spots if he did not ask a native, and would jump into the spot reserved for women and find them naked.

Thirdly, I grew up in an electronic gadget-free environment. We had no television, neither had we computers or tablets to distract us. Every now and then we would manufacture our own automobile toys from stems of shrubs. That shrub was called ezuku-zuku (plural, vezukuzuku) in my native Bakweri language, with hollow pith used in making living fences. Whenever their bolls reached a diameter of say thirty centimeters, we would cut one into slices and use those slices to make wheels for our automobiles. Bamboo branches could also be used to make training tricycles for toddlers. Sometimes I would build pyramids and skyscrapers with pieces of wood produced when my mother axe-split fuelwood for the kitchen. I would admire the wooden skyscrapers that I was able to produce by ingenious use of pieces of wood. That is how I grew up in the villages of Bokwai and Muea.

The making of a scientist started in January 1960. It was a drowsy afternoon at the heart of the dry season. As I lolled in my seat in the window of my grandmother’s small thatch-roofed, one-bedroom house in Bokwai, it seemed to me that the village street was half-asleep. The partly torn calico curtains were drawn over the kitchen windows, and hardly a soul was stirring. The only animation was shown by a group of little children carrying buckets of water and washed clothes as they returned from the Koke River the only source of water for the village, and even they were lackadaisical as they moved up the village. In a lazy, rather absent-minded way, I thought to myself whether it would not be wise to go to the stream also and have a bath for myself.

Suddenly, a little boy entered my grandmother’s kitchen. He was a little dark boy and a bit smaller than me (I would guess a year or so younger) and wore a small dull-white shirt that had been almost completely soiled by dry-season dust over a rather loose and torn pair of khaki shorts tied to his waist by a forest liana string. When he entered, he met me sitting by the fireside, pondering what to do with myself amid the intense summer heat. He greeted me with a rather shy smile and told me that my uncle Lucas Mosoke Esowe wanted to see me. Lucas Esowe, who we habitually called Mola Kake, was a moderately built gentleman, a bit fair in complexion, and father of some eight children or so from two separate marriages. He was actually my mother’s first cousin. Several years later, he would succeed his father as chief of Bokwai village. His father, Chief Alius Esowe Motute, was the elder brother of my mother’s father, Peter Mosoko Motute. Their own father was called Motutu mo Osi. They all lived and brought up their children and grandchildren as a single family unit in the main village street, which came to be known as Wonya Osi (which in Bakweri means the descendants of Osi). The street was thus named after Osi, our great-grandfather.

When I reported to Mola Kake, he told me to go back home, get ready, and come back to his house. He was going to take me somewhere. Although I was rather excited to go out of town, I was equally surprised because Mother was not home, and it was not customary to make an outing without her consent. She was mother and father to us, since she was raising us as a single parent, in the absence of our father who had died some years earlier. She needed to know where I was at every moment, because in those days there were stories of child kidnappings by Abriba and Awawa merchants who came from Nigeria and settled in various villages of anglophone Cameroon to carry out trade of mostly clothes and sometimes foodstuff. We could play as much as we wanted in the village where everyone was seeing us, but were warned that we had to announce our out-of-village trips each time we had to leave the village for any reason, because our parents had to be sure we were in full security.

I came back in time to see Mola Kake sitting in his sofa waiting for me. I was dressed in rather faded navy-blue shorts and a light-brown shirt. What a match! When I reached his sitting room where he had been waiting for me, he gave me the biggest surprise of the season - he announced to me that he was taking me down to Molyko to register me in primary school. Although I was excited, I kept telling myself that this would present another financial burden to my mother, Yaya Etonde, who already had two children (my two older sisters, Sophie and Christiana) in primary school. In those days, primary school attendance was not free; it was accompanied by payment of fees. There was no free education at this level as it is today, so every additional child in school meant more toil for the parents, in this case a single parent.

Molyko was about two kilometers south of Bokwai. The two villages were separated by an unpaved, stony road which was at the time utilized mainly by pedestrians, landrovers and sand trucks which came to collect river-carried black sand from the Fako Mountain; this sand, the main source of sand for the construction of houses, was carried by flood water in our village flood plains. That road was the only way out of Bokwai taking villagers to the Muea market and the other major towns south of Buea. The road had been built by the Germans many years before I was born. It had gone through extensive wear and tear and almost complete dilapidation for the many years of its existence, and the tar it was paved with had all been eroded away. A one-time major road which linked the cities of Muea and Buea had, over the years, been reduced to a footpath. However, as a foot path it was still considered an important outlet because it was still used by pedestrians living in the surrounding villages of Bokova, Bwiteva, Bwitingi and Bokwai east of the Mile 17 – Buea major highway which was the only highway used by people to go up to the urban market and health centre (the sick bay) in Buea, as the health facility was called at the time.

The trip to Molyko was uneventful. It was made by three of us – my uncle, Lucas Esowe, his daughter, Ida Nanyongo Mosoke, and me. Ida was about the same age like me, with just a small difference of say three or four months between us. She was the second child of Mola Lucas Esowe, and was being taken to Molyko to be registered in primary school as well. Nanyongo and I were very excited to go to school, so we spent most of the time in the trip down to Molyko talking about the life we would live when we would start school – the kinds of friends we would make, the kind of food we would be eating during lunch breaks (intervals, as lunch breaks were called at the time), the way we would be protecting our reading books by binding them with covers so that they would not get bad, and so on.

Every now and then Mola Kake would inject some ideas into our conversation, such as the pride he would have if we would succeed in school and become great persons in future. He would insist on the necessity for hard work, obedience to our teachers, punctuality to school, attention and attentiveness in class, and refraining from noise making when the classroom sessions were on. These pieces of advice appeared meaningless to us because we wanted to be left on our own to talk our issues about our to-be school lives. We would however pretend to be listening, but because we had a lot to discuss, we prefered to be