The Town Crier
of Bamenda

The Town Crier monument, which represents the traditional messenger or griot, was created when the city of Bamenda hosted the University Games.

Why did the indigenous people of Bamenda choose the Town Crier as the theme? Because he embodies a central figure of transmission. The Minister of Higher Education, Professor Jacques Fame Ndongo, wrote a major work on communication in which he theorises the mystical, informal dimension of communication in Africa. It is an invisible form of communication that you will not find in Western textbooks, but which is very real and effective.

The Town Crier is its perfect illustration in the North West region: he was sent by the Fon (the traditional ruler) to spread an official message. He would walk through the village and every neighbourhood striking his double metal bell (the traditional gong) to catch the community's attention and proclaim the chief's decrees.

This mystical dimension also showed itself at every major community gathering. When the story of the village had to be told, victories celebrated or defeats remembered, it was the Town Crier who spoke before the great assembly. As the true keeper of the village's history and sacred memory, he passed on this ancestral knowledge through songs, fables, tales and parables. He was not simply a loudspeaker, but the guardian of the people's soul.

By choosing to erect this monument for the University Games, the elites and people of Bamenda wanted to send a strong signal. As the University of Bamenda was still young at the time, this town crier of stone and bronze carried a symbolic message to every other academic institution in the country: “Listen, everyone: the University of Bamenda is born, it is here, its voice now rings out and it is ready to share its story with the whole of Cameroon.”