Frantic Efforts To End Ghost Towns:

Mayor Ekema Patrick Impounds Taxi Cabs, Seals Business Premises

By Boris Esono in Buea

Impounded taxis parked at Buea Council Premises

The Mayor of the Buea Municipality, Patrick EkemaEsunge, has again demonstrated his ability to impose order in the City of Excellence that has seen its activities mired by ghost own operations that have crippled economic activities.

                On Monday, January 21, the Mayor went out sealing shops at random from Great Soppo down to Molyko. Helped by security forces, the Mayor and his entourage destroyed market-sheds and make-shift business stands.

                He impounded taxi cabs and provided them with fuel, forcing them to ply the roads. But most of the taxis that collected free fuel from the Mayor ended up parking. This was perhaps because they were few on the roads and there were no passengers on the streets. 

                Some business persons whose shops were not sealed also ended up closing them, as there were no buyers. Those that kept their shops open, closed their doors intermittently, while observing keenly whether the Mayor was going to surface again to seal locked shops.

                Mayor Ekema in justifying his action said he needed to remove fear from the loyalists of operation ghost town. But some city occupants voiced out their disgruntlement, saying that the Mayor seems to be targeting only Molyko, Bunduma, Great Soppo, Small Soppo and Buea Town while leaving out mile 16, 17 and Muea, considered hot zones of the activities of the separatist actors. These areas avoided in the Mayor’s roadmap of action have witnessed the highest killings, highest gunshots and confrontations between separatist fighters and the Cameroonian military.

                In collaboration with some Senior Administrators in the Town, the mayor ordered security forces to confiscate car documents and identity cards of some taxi drivers and re-directed their taxis to the Council premises where they were parked.

In the morning of Monday January 21, he donated free five litres of fuel each to about 100 taxis to entice them ply the streets of Buea. One of the drivers revealed “when we refused to sign an undertaking, we were asked to come back later in the evening and collect our documents when we must have worked during the day”

                It is said that the Mayor, faced with the drivers’ stiff resistance and threats of engaging a strike action, called off the operation, ordering that the taxis be released and taken away by their owners.

In a show of ‘good faith’, he ordered that each impounded taxi be returned with a fuel token of five litres, and that the drivers will be left with their conscience to decide whether to work or not, but that failure to ply the road will mean harsher action when next their cars are confiscated.

                The operation that saw the confiscation of hundreds of taxis took place on the night of Sunday January 20, when armed troops swoop into streets and mounted irregular checkpoints where all taxis were stopped, passengers ordered out and car documents seized, then, drivers ordered to drive and park their cars in the Buea Council Complex in the company of an officer.

                The drivers were then asked to return on Monday, when they were presented with an undertaking to the effect that they will no longer abstain from working on Mondays that have been traditional ghost town days on which the streets are deserted with people mostly staying indoors.