Ministers, Governors in Gun-Proof Vests, Beckon Citizens
with Bare Chests
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Minister NarcisseMouelleKombe clad in
bullet-proof vest and saddled in an armored car
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The picture of Sports and Physical Education Minister, Prof.
Narcisse Mouelle Kombi, being ferried to Buea for the Mount Cameroon Race of
Hope, sitting inside an armored car and saddled to his seat with a bullet-proof
vest on top of his navy blue suit, speaks volumes of the precarious security in
the NW and SW at this time. It dramatizes in spectacular fashion the scare that
even senior government officials are subjected to, by the Amba boys, who seem
to have finally seized control and are now dictating the pace of events in
these parts of the country.
The
picture captured the minister sitting like an “Apollo” headed for the moon. “He
looked no better than a prisoner on death row waiting to be electrocuted.”
How can
a cabinet minister be subjected to such dehumanizing and humiliating
conditions? An observer wondered on Facebook. It would have been hilarious,
were it not so pathetic, the observer remarked.
“See
how the government is ridiculing itself to the wide world. This is an
unbelievable national shame.” opined another commentator on facebook. He
regretted how times have changed in a country that was once considered an
island of peace, in a turbulent sub-region.
To Le
Jour’s Haman Mana, it was a pitiable sight, for a state dignitary in Cameroon
to be dressed like a US Marine fighting the Al Qaeda in the restive
Afghanistan. Mana said it is laughable because the minister was going to
preside over a sports event, in a region where the government had said two
years ago that there was no problem.
“The
gun-proof vest affords provisional protection against an eventual danger of a
gunshot. But it doesn’t guarantee complete protection to he who wears it. This
is because when the real danger comes; if an expert is the one handling the
gun, the damage it can cause could go as far as causing death,” notes Haman
Mana, who also regrets that “the disastrous effect produced by such
unimaginable images of a minister clad in bullet-proof vest, only speaks
volumes of the attitude of the governing class in latter-day Cameroon: Here,
the master is protected; he must live, alone, all alone, while, by his side,
the citizens he swore oath to protect are living in unimaginable vulnerability.
“When
the governor of a region, or a minister in government, must be so protected if
he must go out, what do they think of the citizens, who, on a daily basis, are
confronted by the same danger they are scared of, and in an area where the
government is evidently losing control?”
The
question thus begs for answers: For how long shall we continue like this? For
how long shall the make-belief persist? Who is fooling who in today’s Cameroon?
The
other day, on 11 February, the march past was made snappy and hasty; armored
cars were stationed all over the town, in Bamenda and Buea; DO’s and other
officials came to the grandstand dressed in bullet-proof vests; gun-toting
soldiers were stationed facing the crowds; anti-riot vehicles and water cannons
were doing the rounds. The evidences of the breakdown of security were
overwhelming.
Yet,
all of this is happening as Yaounde ignores world-wide calls for urgent, broad
based, sincere, all-inclusive dialogue, as a means towards ensuring a return to
normalcy.
The government denied support for, and thus, short-circuited
a veritable peace initiative by Cardinal Tumi.
But
truth be told, the resort to use of armed force has not done the trick. It may
never do the trick. And the damage, both material and especially human, gets
uncountable and immeasurable by the day.
After
three years of a senseless war, is it not the time enough to sit on a table and
talk?
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