Churchill Monono Repositions Buea on ‘Map
of Unforgettable Cities’
By MbenjuMafany, Yaounde
Buea is a city! Any shot at ridding it of
this status, overtly or covertly, will be vile and deceptive. Of course, the
Buea-based Centre for Research on Democracy and Development in Africa, CEREDDA,
has published an illustrative, revolutionary and visionary book to expatiate
this point.
Churchill
Ewumbue-Monono’sBuea, Capital of the Cameroons: Symbol of the Nation and of
Reunification rubs out what tinges of doubt there may be on the might of the
120-year-old multi-dimensional capital, which has been pilloried with a string
of mean but futile “ruralisation” campaigns.
He
states his case for Buea in three parts: the city’s administrative evolution;
important events and dates; and a photo gallery of pre-colonial and
post-colonial structures.
With
instructive stats and facts, the 305-page landmark publication weaves
Cameroon’s contemporary history, beginning with an overview of Buea, which
served as the first religious, educational, and administrative capital of
Cameroon.
However,
the kernel of this thoroughly researched piece is the outright debunking of the
perception that Buea was a village and only witnessed pockets of urbanisation
when it hosted the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Cameroon in
February 2014.
According
to the author, Buea already enjoyed the status of an urban area in the colonial
and post colonial epochs. For example, Buea was destined to be the capital of
not only Kamerun, but also of the entire German West Africa, which stretched to
Togoland under Governor Otto von Puttkamer (1895-1906). In addition, Buea was
ranked in the same category with Douala, Edea, and Yaounde when the town’s
urban character was confirmed in Decree No.68/DF/272 of 15 July 1968 that zoned
the towns of the Federal Republic of Cameroon based on urban indicators and
standards of living.
One
cannot undermine the official visits of Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana,
President Leopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal, and President Albert Bernard Bongo
of Gabon to Buea in 1959, 1966 and 1969 respectively.
Nonetheless,
these glamorous narratives were tainted along the line. There was a structural
and administrative neglect of the mountain station. Even the visionary schemes
of Dr. E.M.L Endeley and Solomon TandengMuna were quashed. “The former German
capital of Kamerun was even downgraded to a rural council area in 1977 although
an urban master plan for the town existed since November 1926”.
Ewumbue-Monono
argues that Buea has faced an important challenge in managing its urbanisation,
de-urbanisation and re-urbanisation. Consequently, he has meticulously examined
this systematic, and maybe systemic, “ruralisation” of the town especially
during the Unitary State.
Yet
the ongoing rebirth or re-urbanisation of Buea has been highly attributed to
President Paul Biya’s New Deal regime. Most importantly, the book solidly
propagates the ever-increasing contributions of the post 1982 government,
through the revival of abandoned infrastructural projects and the establishment
of never-imagined “gifts” to the population of Buea.
It
took the eagle eyes of a geo-strategist fused with an enviable career in
diplomacy and a profound mastery of his hometown to produce this fact checker.
In fact, this is authentic testimony for Buea’s burly roots and its habitants’
clarion call to reposition it on the real map of unforgettable cities.
This
justifiable appeal has hit unapologetic minds and deaf ears in the past
decades, but Ewumbue-Monono has rekindled it with a persuasive, gentlemanly and
credible voice laced with a royal and feathered pen.
N.B.
Buea, Capital of the Cameroons: Symbol of the Nation and of Reunification will
be launched on March 1, 2016 (6:00 p.m.) at the Solomon TandengMuna Foundation
in Yaounde.
No comments:
Post a Comment