Editorial: Violence in schools; beyond police intervention.

He made the declaration at the end of a visit to Government Bilingual High School, GBHS, Mimboman in Yaounde.

Senior Police Superintendent, Fritz Mafani Wole, explained that the visit was part of actions to showcase the activities and role of CSESU in the fight against drug consumption and violence in schools.

During the visit, the police advised students that consumption of drugs has physical and mental consequences on their health and could also jeopardise their future. 

While teaching them that drug consumption provokes violence, the police officers warned the students to stay away from bad friends, remain disciplined and focus on their studies as future leaders of tomorrow.

One of the highpoints was a search of one of the classrooms, during which objects such as needles, a set of playing cards and a condom were found. Owners were taken for questioning at the CSESU headquarters and made to sign an undertaking of good moral.

Speaking to the press at the end of the exercise, the Commander of the Special Unit reiterated that their mission is to fight and eradicate the consumption of drugs and violence in the school milieu.

The CSESU Commander revealed that although cases of violence recorded over the years have declined, they have to remain vigilant as students continue to adopt new strategies to smuggle drugs into campus.

“The challenge is that the children change their tactics every day. We are here to know what they are doing and see how to counteract them. When we catch them this way, they go the other way, but we are trained for that,” the CSESU boss said.

CSESU is no doubt a laudable initiative, but it is limited to Yaounde. Even if it was being nationally implemented, it will not significantly curb the pervasive violence in Cameron schools.

Schools are a reflection and microscope of the society and students copy many of the violent crimes from the society, which is embroiled in corruption, embezzlement, morale decadence, rape, barbaric atrocities, xenophobia, tribalism, questionable elections and unexplained murders, even of priests.

The politicians play the gods with such facetious slogan as the "youth are the leaders of tomorrow". 

But how will that future be if the youth of today are associated with moral decadence, characterised by violence?

As The Guardian Post has pointed out before, it is not only in schools that deviant behaviours occur. It is just a reflection of a society in decadence and intertwined with deep-rooted and seemingly intractable moral corruption.

In one of his interviews about the holistic breakdown of morality, Douala-based international legal consultant and peace crusader, Ntumfor Barrister Nico Halle, painted the picture of a country in need of "deliverance".

"When a student picks up a knife and stabs his teacher to death, where did he learn that kind of behaviour from? When a Divisional Officer, DO, a woman, slaps a teacher, a man far older than she is, in front his students, is that what she was taught in ENAM? When in one week we hear of three cases of fatal violence perpetrated by students in three different schools and in different towns, does it speak well of our society?" Ntumfor Nico Halle had questioned. 

He had asked further: “Is the stabbing to death of a teacher by his student as bad as when a state agent embezzles 50 billion FCFA that was allocated for the construction of a hospital in a locality and hundreds of Cameroonians die of lack of adequate healthcare as a result? It is regrettable that people who pass for political leaders tell lies to the electorate; government ministers tell blatant lies, embezzle state funds, ask for kick-backs before awarding contracts, award public investment contracts only to their incompetent friends and girlfriends; marks sexually awarded in High Schools and universities and parliamentarians siphon money meant for micro-projects into their private pockets”. 

“When contractors collect so-called ‘mobilisation fees’ from the state treasury for contracts awarded only to abandon the projects in the end, when government ministers ask for kickbacks, retro-commission in French, from a foreign investor who wants to invest in a project to give jobs to hundreds and thousands of Cameroonians, when in hospitals treatment is given only to those who can pay extra money to the doctors, when in courts justice is sold to the highest bidder etc, can such a society thrive? Is there no cause for alarm to be raised?", the renowned peace-crusader had also questioned. 

Genuine answers to Ntumfor Nico Halle's questions could be the beginning of building a new society from the ashes on one deficient in morality at every turn and twist.

The solution, as Ntumfor Nico Halle proffered, is "moral rearmament". He was borrowing from Frank Buchmanm (1878–1961), an American Lutheran minister and evangelist, who campaigned for changing society by making people to measure their behaviour through a moral code centered on the cardinal values of "honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love".

Cameroon urgently needs these four virtues, which campaign should not be limited to religious organisations. The government, media, schools and civil society should promote it with the same verve the CPDM regime uses to propagate its "living together" campaign.

The police, despite the impressive work they do at CSESU, cannot tackle violence in schools alone. 

Parents and public officials should be role models for their children to emulate, while the government should make religious education compulsory in all institutions of learning to curb the alarming rate of crimes, not only in schools but in the country as a whole.