All SW Mega Conference at High Risk:

Will All the Roads Lead to Buea on Saturday?

Mafany Musonge, leading SW elite towards unity & consciousness

As elites and chiefs of the South West region are expected to converge on Buea for what they have termed an All South West Mega Conference, fears are rife the conference may not witness the expected turnout because of the festering insecurity in the region and increasingly in the regional capital, Buea.

            South West elites and chiefs announced the holding of the mega conference at an earlier meeting that was convened in Yaounde, at the behest of the region’s political leader and torch-bearer, Peter Mafany Musonge.

            In his scripted opening remarks at the Yaounde forum, Mafany Musonge lamented the degrading security situation in the region marked by killings, kidnapping of chiefs and other persons for ransom, destruction of both private and public property etc. He said it would be preposterous and a sign of negligence and weakness should the elite and chiefs sit and fold their arms, while their region is transformed into a battle ground for a dubious, diabolic and mischievous war.

            “Our region has become a place where traditional rulers can be kidnapped, tortured and murdered as if the people were not human beings with the right to existence….Our region has been turned into the experimental ground for mischievous and dubious people to carry out their diabolic plans against the culture and development of the region, and as a staging ground for rebellion against the state,” Mola Musonge lamented.

            He enjoined his brothers and sisters of the SW not to sit and watch as their people are being presented as a people without a soul, a culture, courage to defend themselves and their identity and that of the state of which they are an integral part.

            It should be noted that because of fear in the minds of the populations, chiefs have deserted their palaces; workers of the CDC and Pamol have deserted the estates and plantations causing a grounding of production in the two giant agro-industries; schools have been shut down in most parts of the region for two years running, socio-economic activities and tourism are grinding to a halt in most parts of a region that until now was acclaimed for its legendary hospitality.

            Therefore, the South West elite and Chiefs will be meeting, in Buea, Saturday, to review all these challenges that the region and its indigenes are facing. It will be a forum to seek ways of facing and forestalling these challenges, as a means towards upholding and protecting the culture and identity of the region and its people.

            The SW mega forum will also afford elite of the region veritable occasion to decide on a common platform and position for the region, for any dialogue that may be called in future to seek a lasting solution to the Anglophone question.

            But the big question is: will the mega conference attract the expected huge attendance giving the raging insecurity in the region?

            If what we are told is true, that the organizers of the mega conference are not oblivious of the security impediment. Reason why they have opted to invite only 50 persons per division to the conference, whose venue in Buea was not disclosed as at press time yesterday.

            Yet, observers fear that even at that the turnout may still not be anything to write home about, especially giving that some persons would be afraid of being targeted by the deadly separatist fighters, who until now have spared no effort in their bid to inspire fear, terror and a generalized psychosis in the minds of the population.

            That is perhaps why some commentators contend that even as the roads may lead to Buea on Saturday, the success or failure of the All SW Mega Conference remains a matter of wait and see.