Lebialem elites, politicians agree to revive socio-economic growth amid armed conflict

This was during the Lebialem socioeconomic conference held on Saturday, August 13, 2022, in Buea, South West region.
The conference was chaired by the Minister Delegate to the Minister of Economy Planning and Regional Development in Charge of Planning, Minister Paul Tasong Njukang, with the Governor of the Region represented by the Secretary-General at the Southwest Governor’s Office, Nkweti Gilbert.

The conference had as its focus, Where are we? Where do we want to be? Saw delegates from the three subdivisions of Lebialem; Alou, Wabane, and Menji come together to see how they can bring back their Division to live again. Minister Paul Tasong in his opening speech at the conference encouraged participants to be frank and resourceful in their contributions aimed at Making Lebialem great again. 30 years since the Division of Lebialem was created in 1992, Minister Paul Tasong describes the division as a dark spot at the end of the country and says their top priority is to see the return of human life in Menji.

Today is the beginning of solidarity and mobilization drive in Lebialem… we must stand up and say no, we can turn the situation around within a very short time, Today we will access what we have done and what we failed to do.

Paul Tasong

Fons met in an extraordinary meeting on August 12

The custodians of the tradition in Lebialem divsion, appreciated the increasing collaboration of Lebialem sons and daughters with the government forces. They recast the curse that was pronounced upon the son of the soil, Ambazonia Activist and Communication Secretary of Marinata-led Interim government, Christopher Anu and those acting in like manners, appreciating all those who have dropped their weapons and left the bushes. They also urged those still in the bushes to drop their guns and join the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration center. The traditional leaders also called on sons and daughters of Lebialem at home and abroad to put their hands on deck to ensure the return of peace in the entire Division particularly in Menji, the divisional headquarters. Also, they appreciated the renewed confidence in the sons and daughters of the Lebialem Division as seen in the appointment of Mr. Fombele Mathias Tayem the Senior Divisional Officer of Logone and Chari, and Mr. Nkweti Gilbert as the Secretary-General at the Southwest Governor’s Office.

Resolutions and impact in future

Minister Paul Tasong picked up two points and captioned them as “The need to change the narrative”, that is, Lebialem’s sons and daughters have the absolute role to play for peace to return in the division while waiting on the government to play its own part, as he mentioned the concept of the importance of community labor to make sure the headquarter Menji is kept clean, and, cherished and protected.

The sum of FCFA 3 million was raised by some elites for the cleaning of the headquarter, Menji.

Orienting the Mayor of Menji Municipality on how to use the three million donations from Hon Bernard Forju and one other donor, Tasong said, the resources should go a long to entertain community Labour, adding that, “The community should come out and clean our capital city”.

“Our Division is 30 years old this year, when we look at the statistics in terms of social development, in terms of economic developments and particularly with social development, the impression we have is that we are way back in the period before which our Division was created, is like we are back to when Mundani Subdivision, we want to continue to be Lebialem Division. The situation of social lives in our division has degraded beyond the time when our division was created, this is unacceptable. Secondly, our division has been and I should say continue to be in the news for the bad reasons; we want to put an end to that rhetoric”. Tasong told the media in an interview.

“To that narrative by which Lebialem is considered as the black spot in the map of Cameroon particularly our division headquarters. Ours is the only divisional headquarters out of 58 in this country which is a total ghost town, we have decided today to put an end to that, we are going to go to Menji, clean up the City, chase the rodents and go back and make our capital city lively, an habitant worth human lives once more”, Minister Paul Tasong said.

On his part, the mayor of Menji, Nkemasong Nicasius, said, “today is one very big day for us because our own leader, Minister Paul Tasong has called us here and the sons and daughters of Lebialem united around him and our Fons and we took stock and one thing came out very clear, the non-functionality of Menji which is the chief town, is a show of shame for us from Lebialem so we have seen the town is virtually abandoned particularly the section of the administrative services is grown into bushes, one thing came out very clear, in a shortest possible time let live come back to that town. The elite have put their hands together and they have enabled the process of clearing Menji, so we are thinking that in the days ahead we would band on the population that is already there and will work with community support to see how we can clean the town and make it look like a Divisional Headquarters”.