3, June 2020
COVID-19 aggravates Southern Cameroons Crisis 0
Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s northwest region, has been at the heart of a three-year conflict between Cameroon government troops and armed groups that are fighting to create a state they call Ambazonia.
Frequent gun battles, lockdowns, road blocks and now the COVID-19 pandemic have made life difficult for the majority English-speaking population. The Anglophone crisis and the coronavirus pandemic have two things in common: lockdowns, hospitalizations and an ever-increasing number of deaths.
The Anglophone crisis has been raging for four years with no end in sight
Scot, a resident in Bamenda said at least with the Anglophone crisis, one knows how to respect some rules like getting home early and avoiding no go areas.
“But for coronavirus, the risk is just so high. You might get into a public space and contract the disease,” Scot, who did not wish to give his second name for fear of reprisal, told DW.
“For the crisis, you know that there are some places that you are not supposed to go and certain things to do and not to do to avoid getting into trouble.”
One treatment center
The region is experiencing a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases. Health officials are warning that if people do not observe preventive measures — such as washing of hands, wearing masks and maintaining physical distance — the number of infections could rise further. Cameroon now has more than 6,300 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. Nearly 200 have lost their lives.
The northwest region’s only COVID-19 treatment center is housed in a government-run hospital. It has a pre-isolation ward, quarantine center, diagnostic laboratory and other facilities for people infected with the coronavirus. Bamenda, Cameroon’s third-largest city, has more than 500,000 inhabitants.
“Since we have more intense cases which are moderate or severe, the doctors see patients as often as need be,” Mercy Fundoh, head of the solidarity ward, told DW. “We try to do a clinical evaluation of these intense cases at least on a daily basis and sometimes twice a day.”
Patient care
As the health of the patients improves, they are transferred to the isolation center where they complete treatment and their number of days of isolation before they are retested.
According to Denis Same, the hospital director, a suspected case of COVID-19 is directed to the pre-isolation ward for investigation and sample collection. “If it is positive then you are taken to the solidarity ward or Azam Hotel meant for those who are asymptomatic, meaning that they do not have or have mild symptoms,” Same told DW.
Coronavirus, an extra burden
Before the coronavirus, Cameroon’s three-year Anglophone crisis had already made life difficult for people. Roadblocks, set up by separatist fighters, often block transport five days a week. They restrict movement between divisions to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“We are faced with two monsters, the Anglophone crisis and coronavirus as we try to avoid those who call the shots, military or separatists,” Thomas Mokum, another resident said.
“For coronavirus, somebody like myself without a job, I put food on the table with the menial things I do around. If you are to respect the social distancing, if you quarantine yourself, if you stay at home, if you do not go out to make money. This is how the two monsters affect my family.”
Battling the coronavirus while trying to stay alive in a conflict zone may result in the people of northwest Cameroon becoming simply too desperate to care about health and safety measures. That could make the grim situation even worse.
Culled from DW
3, June 2020
Cameroon: The appalling silence of good people is hurting the country 0
If there is one thing that the political elites in Yaoundé have been brilliant at over the last 38 years, it is their astonishing consistency in creating political tragedy and fostering appalling silence through intimidation and bribery. As we were about to retire to bed last night, our editorial desk was forwarded a photograph of a fragile creature in God’s waiting room. Upon close scrutiny, it dawned on me that the photograph was that of French Cameroun’s senate president, Marcel Niat Njifenji, who is 86 years old. It is summer in France as I write but he was covered in a blanket. He is doubtlessly in an apartment he purchased in France from the proceeds of his protracted and well-documented unlegislated activities in the Cameroons over the last 50 years.
Mr. Njifenji is a classmate and close collaborator of Paul Biya, the commander-in-chief of the most sophisticated state-ordained terror and misappropriation enterprise ever operated from the Cameroons. He has been the senate president since its inception in 2013. It is alleged within CPDM political circles that the man who presided over the death of SONEL has nine lives. He was once the country’s deputy prime minister and the former managing director of the country’s main power provider, SONEL, in the 1980s. Mr Njifenji’s embezzlement while at SONEL is well-known and documented and that explains why he can never walk away from Mr. Biya. He is one of the bigots who have ensured that no meaningful political change takes place in the country.
Confronted by crises in the Southern Cameroons, economic meltdown, human rights abuses, unprecedented unemployment, Coronavirus deaths, a collapsed public service, Cameroon has diapers-wearing-pensioners passing for leaders. How did a nation of 25 million minds end up in such a state?
After four decades in power, these senile pensioners are watching helplessly as the nation they pretend to govern is melting down. They are in care homes in France contemplating the emptiness of life in their last days on this planet. What a pity? In life, our unwise acts accompany us to plague and torment us and this is very true when it comes to these political arsonists. They have scorched all they inherited from the country’s first President Amadou Ahidjo.
He is about to meet his maker with nothing to show for as his contribution to mankind. Mr Njifenji is soon going to come face to face with the man he most wishes to avoid. He would be answerable to him without the thugs he has helped to sustain for forty years. From his photograph, his regrets and apprehensions are colossal. He has made his bed, let him lie on it. But the most fascinating thing is he is still hanging on to his earthly position as the senate president of a banana republic at 86.
One of the tests of good leadership is how well one grooms his successor. Somehow, for nearly forty years, there is no succession line in any department or arm of government in Cameroon. These ancient and senile individuals that could hardly support themselves are still hanging on to power in flagrant disregard of civility and logic. The most amazing thing is that sane people in their millions seem to find nothing wrong with this insanity. These ancient creatures wobble once every nine months to their offices for photo opportunities and the nation of Cameroon finds nothing wrong with such senselessness.
Cameroonians who have opted for silence will have a lot to repent for as posited by Martin Luther King Jr; “we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people”. Cameroon Concord News Group believes that the good people of this resource-rich country must end this silence and sorrowful episode of their history by standing up to these senile tyrants. Cameroonians must understand that there is no chain of disasters that wouldn’t come to an end. The criminal pensioners are on their way out. Slowly but surely, four decades of political tragedy in the Cameroons are coming to an end.
One thing is now certain; this clique of criminal and senile pensioners that has conspired to ruin a once rich country will not be missed when they leave this planet. Cameroon Concord News Group will supply their families with appropriate headstones with the following message; I CAME; I SAW; I WRECKED.
By Isong Asu
London Bureau Chief