Bafoussam: man arrested for destroying identification post in search of ID card
A man has been detained by security forces for destroying identification equipments at a police station.
The incident occured this October 10 at an identification post in Bafoussam I, West region of Cameroon.
Reports say the man who applied for an identification (ID) card some years ago has still not succeeded to get the original copy. He had been moving about with the receipt of the ID which has expired and whose expiry date has many times been extended but forces of law and order during random controls refuse to understand this. Requesting for the document for an umpteenth time, he got the same answer from authorities “the ID is not yet out.” A response which infuriated him so much so that he chose to ransack the identification office destroying identification equipment in the process.
The man was finally neutralized and kept behind bars.
The biometric ID card production and distribution system in Cameroon has clearly failed in Cameroon. Prior to its introduction, citizens had to wait for a maximum of 3 months in order to have their identification doument delivered but with the new system, the waiteasily lasts for years.
According to the world bank’s estimates, only a quarter of Cameroon’s 26 million inhabitants have a valid ID cards because authorities have been giving diverse reasons for the delays in the production and distribution process.
