“We are the losers in this School boycott…. Ghost town things” Nkambe Mayor

The Mayor of the Nkambe Council in Donga Mantung Division of the North West Region has castigated ghost towns and school boycotts as unbeneficial and self-punishment strategies as ways to draw government’s attention to the plight of Anglophones in Cameroon. Mayor Ngabir Paul was talking to The Guardian Post recently in his Nkambe residence during which he maintained that that there is an Anglophone problem but there is disagreement on how the solution is being sorted. 

“First of all I agree that there are Anglophone issues but how we should go about resolving them is the main thing. Some people think that we can use force, other think we should use dialogue. There are several means. I believe that whatever the issues might be, I disagree with the fact that children should not go to school.  It should not be used as a way of resolving issues.” The Mayor said adding “these are adult issues and should be discussed by adults. Let’s leave the children out of this….. It’s like you are taking the child to use as a shield on the war front.”

Expressing ignorance on the benefits of Ghost towns, the Nkambe municipal head who hitherto has been a business person regretted the continuous ghost owns which ends up in nothing but self-inflicted pain. “From the way things are going, we are the losers in this school boycott things, we are the losers in this ghost town things….. So I believe that we should use other means because it would appear that we are suffering and we are inflicting more pains on ourselves.” Mayor Ngabir said.

On the economic impact of the crisis, the municipal head revealed that “in 2017 we collected little or no taxes. We started from the village of Binka and collected some taxes but when we got to Nkambe the people said they were not going to pay any taxes. So most of 2017 we went without collecting any revenue.”

With the many challenges brought about by the crisis, the mayor recommended the complete tarring of the Nso (Kumbo)-Nkambe road as a developmental project that can make the Nkambe people happy particularly when Nkambe and Wum as oldest divisions of the region founded since 1948 are still linked to the regional headquarters by none tarred roads. “Why should we as a division from 1948 be having the tarred roads after other divisions that were founded several years after us?” the Mayor questioned.  According to the Mayor, the Nkambe council budget has witnessed a drop due to the crisis.