Welcome address: Buea Mayor’s disappointing outing

By Sarah Nkongho in Buea and Njodzefe Nestor in Bamenda

If there is one thing that South Westerners will keep in mind as souvenirs for the reunification celebrations, it is the fact that the Mayor of Buea Council disappointed them by not telling president Biya the truth.   Patrick Ekema was given the opportunity to tell Biya the realities about the South West Region but he dashed the hopes of the entire region into the gutters.

     Many were those who thought Ekema would rise to the occasion and speak for the entire region. He did not. Apparently panicky and jittery, the potly Buea mayor preoccupied himself with just the problems of his Buea municipality. Commentators at the grandstand and even those watching from their TV screens wondered if the apparently inexperienced mayor could not seek needed advice from his predecessor, Mbella Moki, so as to do the right thing.

   Ekema therefore missed a golden opportunity to tell truth to power. And the South West will continue wallowing in its litany of perenial problems, which include notably bad roads, acute shortage of drinkable water, epileptic power supply, abandoned structures like the Limbe deep seaport, the Yoke power generating plant, the Tiko wharf and airport to name only these. 

Mayor of Buea, Patrick Ekema failed to rise to the occasion

    Ekema’s speech is still animating debates in anglophone circles, with many wondering aloud whether he was the right person for the exhalting task. To Lyonga Samuel, a civil servant from the SW but who is temporarily based in Bamenda, Patrick Ekema is a disappointment and has demonstrated his incapability to pilot the affairs of the Buea Council.
    “I expected the Mayor to use the forum given him to tell Biya about the problem of roads in the region and the epileptic water supply which has been a cause for concern. “In the days of Mbella Moki” he continued “this could not have happened”. Lyonga noted that Mbella Moki would have used the opportunity to represent the entire South West people whom he so much loves and has always defended.
    May be Patrick Ekema needs to borrow a leaf from the experience of late Jumua Pefok, the former Government Delegate to the defunct Bamenda Urban council. Late Jumua Pefok has remained in the minds of North Westerners for telling President Paul Biya the truth about the region. When President Paul Biya visited Bamenda in the 1990s, Jumua Pefok was handed a speech from the the authorities with instructions not to change any word. He accepted it. But when the moment came for him to present the speech, he pulled out a different one from his pocket and told Biya the truth about the North West.
    That was the first time President Biya became conscious of the urgency of the Bamenda Ring Road, the need for North West to have a state university and how the Menchum Falls could produce enormous electrical energy. President Biya after listening to the Government delegate was obliged to react to the problems of the region as raised. It came to pass that when President Biya visited Bamenda last December 2010, he dolled out meaningful development projects such as the tarring of the Bamenda Ring Road, the creation of the University of Bamenda and asked for studies to be carried out at the Menchum Falls to harness electricity.
   It is the hope of many therefore that mayor Ekema has learnt his lesson and will do the right thing on subsequent occasions.