(My Visions and Goals)

A paper presentation by Barnabas TEGHA AKAHKUH at the APEX Convention

 of March 2006 Holden to revamp a development spirit.

Keywords: Re-dedication, snickers, culpable, brainwash, unify, beholden, paradigm feedback

Introduction

The world has a cancer and the cancer is man, observed one World Planner in the book, Mankind at a Turning Point.

Man, however, should not be looked upon as a creature of passions and of fears and of envies and of greed. He too is a creature of reason and good-will.

Words that helped build a Nation are looked upon anew, observed Henry Steel Commager in his mimeograph, Moulding a Republic.

Before describing my visions and goals for Aghem Clan, it is imperative and instructive for us to look back on where the Aghem clan is.

Please, look back and imagine for a moment how you feel today after spending such long years with a growing sense of frustration, increased bitterness and snickers who would whisper behind our back. We must admit that we are culpable through our silence. We are often brainwashed into believing that silence and gentility coupled with hard work will eventually be rewarded. Far from that!

Some would believe that the worst thing we can do to our community is to cause trouble, and that if we are patient long enough, the institution will yield us power.

We have been downgraded by our detractors who, by so doing, have occupied our due positions in society.

We have spent all these years in this confusion, maybe, not in vain to our personal ambition and achievement, but I believe in vain, to the detriment of the Aghem community both at home and outside. Where are we today after the “New Menchum”?

You juxtapose my points of emphasis with the present state of affairs we find ourselves in, as sons and daughters of Menchum Division.

My points of emphasis are guided by these questions:

A           What can be done to ensure that the Aghem Clan becomes an even greater clan in the Division than now and fulfil its highest aspirations?

A           How can Aghem sons and daughters better serve its members and the public?

To address these questions, I have developed some points of emphasis under the headings; UNIFY and LOOKING TO THE FUTURE. They reflect what I believe, are the basic necessities at this stage in our history.

If you want to shoot above the tree, aim at the sun

  UNIFY

Two or more groups of people each certain in its rights in what it wants, insist on having things done in its own way. Ultimately, when no compromise is reached, the groups all lose. None of them gets its way, and no one outside these groups wishes to pay attention to them anymore.

By re-dedicating ourselves as responsible sons and daughters of the Aghem clan in particular, and Menchum Division in general, we should concentrate more on what holds us together than on what keeps us apart. This is why I appeal for a Unified Aghem clan. The basic idea is simple:

We acknowledge our differences and also to rise above them, especially in our dealings with the outside world.

Don’t think people should approve and keep their criticisms to themselves. Do recognize that others are Just as entitled to their opinion as you are to yours, and it is waste of time and energy to get cross. Just be satisfied to do your best without bothering unduly about the way people think.

We shouldn’t think that people have to continue doing everything the same way and in the same order. There are several reasons why unity is important to us. Of these, we can cite:

8      Conserving resources

Opposing factions in conflictual organizations end up consuming their resources – fighting each other rather than fighting for the unity of their organization and its interest as a whole. When two brothers are fighting, the stranger inherits the estate (Chinua Achebe)

8      Credibility

No one on the outside wants to listen to a group that cannot speak with a unified voice. If we do not speak with a unified voice, we will lack credibility.

8      Profiting from each other 

Groups that fight each other suffer rather than profit each other from the diversity they offer each other. We see this suffering in countries where ethnic groups battle each other rather than work together.

8      Asking the right questions

We all need each other irrespective of the field of work. Our main interest should therefore be serving our constituent’s needs such as for a healthy socio-economic development of our clan.

Unfortunately, when we become beholden to particular fields, methods or paradigms, we often ask not the best questions, but the question that our allegiance “allows” us to ask.

For example, instead of asking what is the absolute best way to treat a patient, we ask only which of the methods of our paradigm we should use; or as another example, if we study memory but we see ourselves only as “cognitive” psychologists, we fail to ask the interesting questions about memory that an economist, a biologist, mathematician, linguist, physician, educationalist or even a politician might ask.

8      Staying young

We should not think that change is always a bad thing. Do recognize how unrealistic it is to expect the world to stand still with everything remaining the same. If you refuse to accept this fact, you will grow old quickly. We could have regrets, and preferences, and memories, if we like, but we should not turn away from the present into the past to escape what we dislike. Take an example of a man runs into problems and resorts to drinking as a solution. He fails the more because he now becomes a drunkard.

In the real sense, things that we differed on yesterday should not be of any importance now, but rather, the things we agree on from today should be of prime importance to the development of the Aghem clan and even beyond. This will certainly enable the clan come out of this present stalemate. Thence, we can , in one voice, and as one man, regain our rightful place once lost in society. The important thing in life is not the fall one makes, but rather the way one gets up after the fall.

I will invite all of us to try this therapy in order to stay young:

Just look outwards away from yourself and share interest and activity with others. If you do this you will realize that by not thinking about yourselves all the time, you will not constantly be aware of aches, and pains, an ailments, and all your worries and troubles. Then, even if you are not-so-well senior citizen, you will stay young in mind.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

We have to increase our support for, uphold and expound the ideals of APEX to strive for the development of Aghem clan, Menchum, North-West Province and Cameroon.

On the surface, one would think that revenue would not be an issue for our community to advance. To offer our members and the public the high level of service that we ought to face is expensive, and dues only cover minimal percentage of the “annual budget”. Our financial support in this light should be viewed as a means to several ends, not an end in itself. Of those end, we can include:

A          The creation of a conducive working atmosphere within the Aghem community in a bid to uphold our support to the Government so that we could canvass for the resources needed for sponsoring earmarked projects that would breed development of the clan and beyond. This, within the context of good governance.

A          Developing and implementing new ways to demonstrate the potentials of good will to benefit all sectors of society should be our Critical watchword. This calls for greater commitment by members, and the need for competent management to deliver the effective clinical services or to conduct research relevant to this diverse community.

A          My wish is to have our efforts rewarded and felt in an even greater presence in areas such as quality health care, education, information and communication technology administration, media programming, public policy, etc. We must see ourselves as a problem-solving indigenes to benefit the common person within the clan and even beyond, both in practice and in action as in science.

Before determining where we should be going, we must first examine what is currently being done and what could be done better.

8         Knowing ourselves better

       If you feel what I think, we are wandering in the wilderness when it comes to effective leadership in our community. The initial step to consider about leadership in our community to a greater scale is self-awareness. There’s a dire need to change our mentality as the current one has plunged this our Dear clan into the present stalemate, not to talk of the non-fruit yielding ramifications that have affected the population at large. It is hard to “know ourselves” in certain domains.

People tend to perceive their competences in self-serving ways, especially, where accurate feedback is rare. People don’t like giving negative feedback, so, it is likely we will fail to hear criticism that would help us improve our performance. If negative feedback is rare, it is because what people say to our face is more positive that what they’re saying behind our backs.

People overestimate themselves, maybe, out of ignorance. Take the ironic example of an elderly man who thinks he is an excellent driver but is a hazard on the road; or someone who just reads a book on the stock market and is ready to compete with a professional stockbroker. Sometime it doesn’t matter whether you can accurately judge your skills – if you think you are a good dancer but you’re not, the worst you can do is to step on your partner’s toes. This, I believe is what has happened to us and we lose zeal of effective leadership and trust from the powers that be.

8         Positive effect

It is my fervent wish that by the time this convention would have come to a close, we should be in fundamental agreement on almost all matters, we should have subscribed to the same philosophy, lived up to the same moral code, accepted the same obligations of service to the common good and for the most part, we shall use the same vocabulary and confess the same style.

When the transient circumstances and fugitive performances which attended this crisis shall have disappeared, our work will merit the notice of posterity, because in it, will be candidly and ably discussed, the principles which will always be interesting to mankind so long as they shall be connected to civil society.

We should feel like one and express Agape love to one another. This is love sought to preserve and create community as expressed by Martin Luther King Jr., in his “Experiment in Love”. As a result, no distance was too far to travel in the attempt to restore community.

I here see our concern from now on, as the cross we should bear to resurrect our clan guided by the Holy Spirit. Agape love is perceived as,

-             A willingness to forgive, not seven times but seventy times to restore community. The cross is the eternal expression of the length to which God will go in order to restore broken community. The resurrection is a symbol of God’s triumph over all forces that seek to block community. The Holy Spirit is the continuing community creating reality that moves through history. He who works against community is working against the whole of Creation.

Our presence then at this APEX convention should be looked upon as a luminous revelation of the enlightened minds of Aghem Sons and Daughters. This should also be looked upon as a reasonable, realistic, tough, lucid, persuasive progressive as well as magnanimous achievement.

Over the years, these things have been taken foe granted much as words of our Fathers.

When we would have set up a functional “Unity Platform”, even when the people would say that they did it themselves, we will feel better to be part of a Unified team rather than a fractured one.

May the Almighty God, whose Spirit has raised us To where His Grace is, Bless us all.

 Theme song: 

A          Let us all be like the butterfly,

A          Let us not be like the caterpillar

A          Change! Let’s change!

A          To build the Aghem clan.

Thank you very much for your Attention!

Barnabas TEGHA AKAHKUH

WA-MAGHA.