Is there a chance ghost town days will stop this 2023?
Its been over 5 years since the start of the anglophone crisis in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon and ghost town has been observed every monday for almost the same amount of time. This has crippled schools and businesses as well as actors of the transport industry considerably.
Many members of government have adopted different strategies to put an end to the practice and have failed to do so over the years. President Paul Biya even threatened administrative and financial sanctions on civil servants who fail to show up at work on mondays and this threat too has been futile.
The Kumba city mayor, Gregory Mewanu had gone as far as organising extracurricular activities on Mondays such as football games around the city hall for people of all ages groups but just few persons actually showed up for the activity.
The Paramount ruler of the Bafaw people, Nfon Mukete IV, on his part gave out talks and even employed more vigilante group members in an effort to reduce fear and encourage the people of Kumba to work on Mondays but this too failed.
“For nothing in this world can I risk my life to go out on a Monday. Things are getting better slowly but they do not expect everything to just bounce back to normal. We are still afraid because Mondays have always been a day kept aside to be inactive for fear of the unknown and 2023 cannot be exempted yet until we witness guns dropped down,” Blaise Chi, a teacher opinionates.
The end of year speeches from the Archbishop of Bamenda, the Fon of Nkwen, the paramount ruler of Buea and the Prebyterian Church in Cameroon Moderator all centred around peace in 2023.
Some schools in the southwest have slowly opened their doors and allowed students and teachers have Mondays as a school day but most of them can not wear uniforms to the institutions on such days for fear of punishemnt from non-state armed groups.
“We go to school on mondays but I make sure I appear in normal day to day outfit because I am still scared and my parents can not even let me leave home wearing a uniform and Mondays for real are cold in school unlike Tuesdays and the rest,” Loic, a secondary school student in Buea says.
“We can even try Mondays in Buea and Limbe because I see few schools opening and shops too each time I visit but I still see the fear in them. Try that in Bamenda in fact no one can even dare and I really do not know if Monday can ever be an active day in the North West because the fear will always be there. Over there is the real deal and there’s no joke about it or you lose your life. Not even animals go out on Mondays in Bamenda,” Pascalin Ngeche who is a parent of 2 and living in Bamenda narrates.
In spite of various measures used by government to put an end to such fears, the reality remains that until both warring factions come to a compromise, no inhabitant of the two regions will boldly go about their activities on days set aside for ghost town operations.
Read also: Bamenda III: DO calls on population to embrace peace, forget separation
