The NBDC officially opened the library of the Imperial Academy of Arts and Science, IMPAAS Tiko, which has been named after Bate Besong, while commemorating the International Book Day on April 23 with the school. The launching, which took place at IMPAAS, also saw the donation of consignments of books to the institution by NBDC members.

IMPAAS Principal, Henry Tabe Abang, described the twin occasion as memorable. To him, christening their library after an academic icon in the calibre of late Dr. Bate Besong is a big challenge. “The challenge is that we shall use that same library to produce another Bate Besong in the subsequent years. We shall not delay in making it become an enviable centre for the acquisition of knowledge,” Tabe said.

Appreciating NBDC’s book donation, IMPAAS Proprietor, Stephen Mbu, said it was not only a kind gesture but also timely. “The NBDC donation has provided the fuel and the steam for the library’s take-off,” he remarked.

Mbu invited the students of IMPAAS to read and write like Bate Besong, adding that Besong was not only a firebrand lecturer at the University of Buea, but he was a prolific writer of English Literature books. “No other name for this library could have been more befitting,” Mbu quipped.

NBDC Chairman, George Ngwane, said his project, Mobile Library or Books on Wheels, is to promote a book culture among the youths, with emphasis on the girl child. He said it is also to equip libraries that would provide access to education and literacy to the youths.

Drawing inspiration from the Ghanain Publisher, Richard Crabbe, Ngwane quoted; “If education is the road out of poverty, then books are the wheels needed for the journey.”

Ngwane explained that the NBDC contribution is to energise the epileptic indigenous book sector, especially in the face of cultural imperialism and the revolution of the internet industry.

To the students of IMPAAS and beyond, the NBDC chair told them; “We’re out to encourage your quest for knowledge, to satisfy your ambition to be successful in life, to shape your values and visions of a new society that our generation has loaned from you. Indeed, to celebrate and immortalise the written word, for in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.”

The consignment of books NBDC donated were of diverse subjects with fifty titles by Anglophone Cameroon writers such as Sammy Oke Akombi, Churchill Ewumbue-Monono, Agnes Fri, Comfort Ashu and Dibussi Tande.


Keywords: cameroon culture