Cameroon: death of Hamidou, face of the teachers' struggle movement
A school teacher in Cameroon.
(Illustration) RFI/Nicolas Champeaux
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
His name was Hamidou, he taught sports in a high school in northern Cameroon.
Symbol of the strike movement which has paralyzed the country's education system for almost three weeks, he died on Tuesday March 8.
After years of precariousness, he had so moved public opinion that the authorities had just granted him his integration into the public service.
He was 49 years old.
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With our correspondent in Yaoundé,
Polycarpe Essomba
Emaciated face, frail body, this is how Cameroonians discovered for the first time, in a photo posted on social networks, the one who quickly became the symbol of the OTS movement, for "We supported too much".
Hamidou, a sports teacher in a high school in northern Cameroon, held in his hands a sign on which was carried a particularly moving message: "
2012-2020 without registration number, ten years without salary
", he had written in particular.
Quickly going viral, the publication outraged, shocked public opinion, and triggered an avalanche of messages of compassion and support from his compatriots.
Finally a civil servant
In the process, the strike of secondary school teachers was launched, with Hamidou as a figure of the distress of this category of public service personnel.
For Hamidou, born in 1973, fate was finally going to smile on him.
In no time, his integration file as a civil servant, inexplicably drowned for 10 years in the maze of the Cameroonian administration, was going to succeed.
On February 24, Hamidou could wear a smile, he was finally a civil servant of the State of Cameroon.
But alas, the fate will definitely go after poor Hamidou.
Less than two weeks after his integration into the public service, his teaching colleagues and the Cameroonian public learned, stunned, of the sudden death of this chalk martyr.
With emotion, I learn of the death of the illustrious teacher #Hamidou.
I bow to the memory of this great
man who for 10 years served his country and was devoted to his vocation.
pic.twitter.com/qLSNDzm2wX
— Manuel-fritz Nkenfack (@FritzNkenfack) March 8, 2022
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To read also:
In Cameroon, students join their teachers in the discontent of the education sector
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