The parents of Melima wanted Mr Manteur to be arrested. But since he was a White man and an expatriate send by France to Cameroon, in order to educate young French-speaking Cameroonians, he managed as usual, to get off the hook. While the parents of Melima were furious and wanted the biology teacher arrested, Risdoh in her tend was falling in love with the pariah. She was in love with the same man who has become the staple of the local print media. And the allegations made against Mr Manteur became almost a national matter, the ministries of internal affairs or territorial administration and that of internal security took over the issue. The internal security is the ministry that Cameroon’s Police Force is attached to. This last ministry decided that, a special investigation should be open, in order to find out whether it was true that, the French biology teacher had gone to bed not only with Melima, but with many other girls who were his students and who were also minors.
At this stage, some colleagues of Manteur knew that, with such an investigation opened, Mr Manteur will be arrested, even though he is of French nationality. They also knew that, even if Manteur was found guilty, he won’t be prosecuted in Cameroon, but will be deported back to France, where he will spend a long time in jail. But Mr Manteur was a brilliant tactician, for he had gone ahead and assured all the girls he had gone to bed with that, he will married them. He told the girls individually to keep for themselves the secret of their marriage. For Manteur knew better than any body that, most girls that he went to bed with, won’t have accepted if he were not a White from France. This is so because, France remains a country that, most Cameroonians associate with prosperity. And he took time off to dissipate any line of doubts in the minds of his female students. To be sure of their loyalty, he gave them all false addresses of his home address in France. The black colleagues of Manteur were very happy, when they got news that, an investigation on the behaviour of their White colleague has been open and also that, all female students presumed to have had an affair with him will be privately interviewed by a judge and two Police officers.
They knew that, the time of Manteur was up. The motive of their annoyance and jealousy toward Manteur, was not because he was White or more competent than them, nor was it even that, they were against him having affairs with his female students. The black African colleagues of Manteur were angry because, they too were doing the same thing, but since Manteur was sent to Lycee du General Leclerc, girls were snubbing them and were instead focusing only on Manteur. The female students at Lycee du General Leclerc acted like bees on their hive with Manteur. But the hopes of some black African colleagues of Mr Manteur to see him prosecuted were mere hopes. For all the girls who had seen France via the TV set of the French biology teacher and also saw the ease with which Manteur was leading his life in Yaoundé, could not afford to spoil their opportunity of going to France, as their biology teacher had promised them. And in conversations, the female students usually said: “if Manteur was leading such a prince-like life here in difficult Yaoundé, therefore, in France, he must be a king.
And when they were invited by the investigation team, and asked whether they had had an affair with their biology teacher, they all said, their teacher never had any affair with them other than studies. On the contrary, they told the investigating team that, “Manteur was a sort of Jesus Christ, who was occasionally helping them financially and also helping them to understand their subject accurately”. There was even one who took extra time to explain to the investigating team how humane was Manteur, while another one added: “recently, my father hadn’t monies to buy me some text books and it was Manteur who gave me CFA 2500, to buy the text books that I needed”. And she asked: who elsewhere in the teaching Corp of Lycee Leclerc could have acted that way or give me such an amount of money”?
No comments:
Post a Comment