Interview

We Will Talk with Our Brothers in the Bushes 
  -Chief Bate Epey, Mayor of Tinto Council
-Separatist fighters took advantage of the enclave nature of Tinto and made it their hideout and fortress
-All dev’t projects in Tinto council in 2018 were abandoned because of insecurity
- We will accelerate the development projects in Tinto in 2019   
The Mayor of the Tinto Council, in Upper Bayang subdivision of Manyu division has said that he and his collaborators will engage dialogue with separatist gunmen if only to convince them to allow for development projects to be carried out in the municipality. Far from indiscretions by some persons that he and staffers of the council had escaped the council area and sought refuge elsewhere, Chief Bate Epey Robert says he had long returned to Tinto and has been busy working and sensitizing the populations on the need for projects to be executed and for life to return to normalcy. Mayor Bate Epey made these and other remarks during a chat with The Median’s editor, Ayukogem Steven Ojong, shortly after the budget session of the council, holding in Mamfe, on 18 December 2018. The following are excerpts.

**The Tinto council has just held its last session for 2018 in Mamfe town, instead of at the council chambers in Tinto. What informed your decision to carry the session to Mamfe?

Chief Bate Epey, Mayor of Tinto Council

--Thanks for this question which I consider very pertinent. You may want to know that the Tinto council area is very porous, apart from the fact that it is situated at the crossroads. That is to say the roads leading mainland Southwest, NW and Lebialem including notably the Kumba-Mamfe, Ekok-Mamfe-Bamenda, Kumba-Batchuo-Bamenda, Mamfe-Bakebe-Menji and Kumba-Bakebe-Menji all go across the Tinto council area. So, just as the vehicles crisscross our municipality so to do other persons crisscross the municipality. This includes even the separatists who are in the bushes with arms and who have for some time now been terrorizing the populations of the council area and making life almost unbearable for inhabitants. So we thought that it would not be secure to rally the councillors in Tinto for the council session. This is because the Mayor does not handle security issues. Security issues are the prerogative of the SDO and DOs. So when we put the matter to the SDO of Manyu and the DO of Tinto, they advised that we rather assemble the councillors in Mamfe where the security is guaranteed. So the decision to hold the council session in Mamfe was upon the express advice of the SDO and not the Mayor. You know that the SDO is the supervisory authority over the councils in the division.

**You just adopted a new budget for the council for the year 2019. Given the high level of insecurity in the council area which has brought council activities and economic life in the council area to almost zero level, how do you expect to finance this budget not to talk of realizing planned projects?

--It may interest you to know that we took all these concerns into consideration during our review of the budget. We took into consideration the insecurity and the economic slowdown. We took into consideration that all the population have either relocated to other towns or to the bushes and it would be difficult to collect taxes. We noted that those carrying arms have made the mayors and councillors their primary targets and this pushed the latter to seek refuge in the divisional headquarters. We brainstormed on other issues of concern like the logging companies that have been prevented from operating. In voting the budget therefore we took into consideration the fact that virtually all the economic activities in the municipality have witnessed a lockdown and that it would be difficult to raise money from taxes. But we at once also contemplated measures that can rekindle these activities because we cannot just sit and fold our arms while our council area goes in ruins. So, we decided that we would clean up the markets so that business activities can start again. We told ourselves that to do this we must first see how we can talk to our youths who are in the bushes with arms and let them to know that it is not reasonable for them to make the development of the council impossible because it is the locals who feel the pain and not those they claim to be fighting. We plan to make them to know that the development of the council area knows no colour and that whether you are a secessionist or federalist or an economic operator, everybody needs development. Everybody, be it the so-called Ambazonians or Cameroonians, we all need roads, markets, hospitals, schools, water, electricity and more. So, we took all these into consideration during our review and adoption of the budget. Happily enough the government has set the pace for appeasement and has put in place practical modalities on how the appeasement, disarmament and rehabilitation plan would proceed, it is our hope that normalcy will return and business and social life can return to Tinto council.

**Can you paint a picture of how the 2018 budget was realized giving the insecurity and the fact that you and your staff were out of the council for most part of the year?

-- I should say that in spite of the frightening insecurity, we tried what we could to realize some projects. But I must emphasize that aside the Ambazonia conflict which has made life in our council area very difficult, the council is naturally very enclaved. You may want to know that apart from the trans-Africa highway that passes from Bamenda through our municipality (Numba-Batchuo) to Mamfe and Ekok, and the portion of the Kumba-Mamfe road also passing through the council (Nfaitok-Bathuo), there is no other Km of tarred road in the Tinto council area. So for a municipality that counts 59 villages and which stretches from Widikum in the NW to Batchuo and which borders Lebialem, Meme and Kupe-Muanenguba divisions, there’s only about 80km of tarred roads. The Bakebe-Tinto-Menji which is about 95 Km is barely motorable. To cut it short, I should say roads are the bane of Tinto (Upper Bayang) council area. However, we are comforted by the fact that the ministries of public works and that of town planning have allocated some funds to us which can help alleviate our road problem. I hope that our brothers in the bush will permit the projects to be realized by the contractors especially giving that development projects have been stagnant for a complete year. As for the year that just ended I must say that we did not achieve much in terms of realization of projects. We had to build classrooms in Diffang, Tinto-Mbu and Ekourite. Only one of these classrooms was realized. We had a building to attach to GS Kepele. It was not realized. We had to provide a medical facility in one of the villages. This also was not done. We had to provide benches, chairs and other equipment for some schools, but this could not be done. The reason for all of this was because the contractors said they could not go and risk their lives just because they want to execute projects for the council. However, we hear that the government has extended the execution time for some of these projects up to February. So we hope that some of them can be realized within this period. I seize this opportunity to once more tell our brothers who have up arms that development has no colour and so they should allow for these projects to be carried out.

**Hoping that normalcy returns in Tinto, what are the priority projects you have budgeted for 2019?

--As I just mentioned earlier, we are going to embark on a massive sensitization of the populations and especially the youths who have taken up arms. Then those projects that were put on hold last year would be picked up and accelerated. Our objective is to do things fast and let our people know that government has returned and that things are happening again. We need this confidence building if our displaced populations must return. You may want to know that the town of Tinto is in a very bad shape presently due to abandonment. The roads are barely passable; bushes have sprouted just everywhere in town – in school campuses, markets, health centres, just everywhere. So we shall give priority to grading the roads and clearing the surrounding bushes this so as to make the town once more truly clean and habitable. We are going to tackle this as fast as possible. But we need to first engage dialogue with our brothers in the bush to make these development projects possible.

**From the way you speak one should expect to see you returning to Tinto in the days ahead to regain your comfortable seat at the council chambers that is, after several months of staying away as an IDP.

--Running away was not particular for officials of Tinto council alone. When the conflict became deadly, it drove just everybody into panic. Those of us council and party officials who were the main targets had to run to safety. So I was away for a short while. But I have since returned to base. Others are still living as IDPs in other safer localities. I have been to my village on several occasions. You know that Tinto is vast. I have also visited Nfaitok and Bachuo-Akagbe on several occasions to talk to the people. I have been talking with the military and asking them to help us with front-head loaders and caterpillars to enable us to do some work on the roads in the council area. I may not be seen in my office all the time. But I am within the council area and I am working. I cannot run away from Tinto. I was born here and I will continue staying here no matter the death threats that I have been receiving.

**Thanks for talking to The Median.

--The pleasure was mine.