The Nightmare on the Ring Road Versus The People's Call from Donga Mantung Division (My Letter Number One)

By Fai Cassian
I have often heard people saying that writing any critical judgement analysis on the neglect of the Bamenda Ring Road by the Biya Regime is like writing a Satanic Verse. However, this is a prophecy that people have lived for years, which I am tempted to define it as a cause with considerable backing. That Donga Mantung Division may soon become an Island on land due to the poor state of nature of the stretch of the Kumbo-Ndu-Nkambe-Misaje stretch of the road is a fact. It is the darkest corner in human existence. 

The rains have just started and as usual every little hill along the Ring Road is making a name. Traveling from Bamenda to any part of Donga Mantung Division needs two sets of clothes. One set for the mud and one to wear when you get at your destination. Traveling in a bus from Bamenda to Nkambe, Ndu, Misaje, Nwa, Ako and other places is quite an interesting journey. One would listen to the conversations which triggers a deluge of angry questions. Yet Donga Mantung CPDM elite have jumped onto the bandwagon of Calling on President Biya to contest in the upcoming Presidential election when he has failed to supervise the construction of the Bamenda ring road as he promised some years back. 

One keep wondering whether these political vuvuzelas from Donga Mantung Division have human feelings. What if in calling for President Biya to contest, they carefully remind him of his pledge. Politics "na njangi", and if we go by that President Biya still to "scratch the back of Donga Mantung Division". It may sound disgusting that a people who have been neglected and reduced to third class citizens should continue to behave like they have been auction with no price tag. I always remember this statement made by a friend of mine, Francis. He told me that whether I like it or not, Donga Mantung Division has been reduced to a place where its own cabinet ministers are only secretaries to others. 

Anyway, that is not my interest for now. What is strange is that Donga Mantung CPDM militants behave as if there is something after them. If politics is a means to development, I don't want to conclude so soon that they have failed. After all, it is their democratic rights. That is the price of democracy. I don't want to think like others who believe that those signing such calls are indirectly insulting the population. But should one stand up to the wrong to preserve the truth? Is it the invasion of political UFOs that has plunged the Division in such a mess. 

Rushdie writes in his book The Satanic Verses that… By Allah, even if they were to place the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand so that I abandon my mission, I will never do that until Allah makes it prevail or I perish in carrying that out…I know the political gangsters who are hiding in the CPDM will call me names, the question is whether the Motions and Calls for President Biya's candidature that will be issued this week from Donga Mantung by CPDM elite, militants and sympathizers will be transported by air to Yaounde. After all, they have good cars. But let the word go forth from this time and medium to friends and enemies alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation that will talk than die in silence. That this is not fiction like the practices of the poli(thief)cians. That the people of Donga Mantung Division have been tempered with carelessness by the Biya government is an indisputable human rights abuse. Since 1948, the Bamenda man has reluctantly accepted the slow shame of those human rights abuses to which this nation has always been committed to and which the nature of this country and the powers that be have imposed. In fact if a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it can never save the few who are rich.

When government institutions were the pillars of moral value, any statement made publicly by the Head of

state of this great nation Cameroon was never suspected to be an “April fool” kind of merrymaking. Any public pronouncement of the Head of State was considered by all and sundry as part of the Presidential largess that the President dishes out every time he visits any locality. Such a pronouncement was considered as a symbol of decorum because such promises were immediately followed up with actions within the shortest time possible. I remember my father once told me that President Biya once declared that he was personally going to supervise the construction of the Bamenda Ring road. Yet 25 years have come and past since he made that promise and the Bamenda Ring is still in tears.

 Traveling from Kumbo to any part of Donga Mantung Division is not just a nightmare but demands a week of serious fasting and prayer because you never know when you will get to your destination. I do not know whether it is the influence of the Western culture that has transformed government institutions into negating its people or influence of politics that has made Head of States to forget the basic needs of the population. However, anyone who would maladroitly sit on the fence to declare that the Bamenda Ring Road is not a necessity or a priority should be considered as being in a state of sin. Being a respecter of the institution that President Biya incarnates and the powers that he wields, the pressure suddenly became unbearable when I spent over 4 hours on the same spot along the Ndu-Nkambe stretch of the ring road. Njifor, around the Ndu Tea Plantation is making a name. Karkar, Yamba in Mbot are star locations along the ring road. Cars have "died" prematurely at these places without showing any syndromes of breakdown. 

Even though there is a statement in the Bible which states that people should not pass round for judges on others, I believe it is often quoted out of context because the Bible still tells us that people should be judged if their acts are injurious. I am aware that this critical judgment analysis is badly needed. It is imperative because the Ring road is in tears again  and the bells of anguish are being heard signaling that Donga Mantung Division may cease to exist in the map of this country. I am also aware that this bit will offset many people but it is a fact. Even so, who is even going to twist my arm for speaking the truth? Is it not a democratic right for the people of Donga Mantung to have a good access road and even enjoy more as a border Division? 

 Calamity, calamity………… 

Notwithstanding, if anyone takes this judgment for an offense, believe me it is positive insults. And if today some of our leaders no more command the powers they use to exercise, it is because of the copious counterfeited promises they make. I recall a former Minister once asked me in Yaounde whether the Bamenda Ring road had any economic values. It pains and kills my imagination as well as the picture post-card I got from my father that they decided to unite with La Republique because of what was happening up the road. 50 years after reunification the situation of this road is more pathetic than before. When I look across the river and see the road network, I cry for my Fatherland. When I see politicians taking false oaths because they have their interest to protect and like Achidi Achu who after his appointment as Prime Minister declared that he was the Ring Road, I pity myself why I was born a Cameroonian. In fact I disagree with people who would say that it is the notion of personal aggrandizement that has pushed the Biya regime to loose sight of reality. And to me, it is some sort of a mental torture that is being exercise. 

Come to think about the Mini Ring Road to Oku, I keep asking myself whether we also need someone from Donga Mantung to be appointed Prime Minister before the cry of the people could be heard. 

Atleast Donga Mantung has great people who are fit, yet they have and are reduced to secretaries to incompetent Francophone brothers. Chai!!! Paul Biya, Donga Mantung deserves the right to exist and partake in the enjoyment of the national cake. 

The North West Region has had the privilege to produce two Prime Ministers but the notion that Biya appoints ministers to work for their people did not work. None of them created the unexpected like late Pefok who rejected a speech from the Yaounde cronies and doled out one from his pocket to tell President Biya what the Bamenda man thinks is like waiting for exhale. When Rt Hon. Achidi Achu was appointed Prime Minister, he told North Westerners that he was the ring road. It was a bitter pill but  we accepted and swallowed it. Yang Philemon also had the good fortune to be appointed Prime Minister and since charity begins at home and justice next door, work on the Kumbo –Nkambe Stretch of the ring road will end in Kumbo while a mini Ring Road linking Oku to Babungo, Noni and maybe Misaje will be tarred. 

 Anyone who has been on this road any of these days will agree that to travel to Donga Mantung Division, it demands serious fasting and prayers. No pregnant woman can travel on this road especially with the clouds of dust. The story of the ring road is not only that of pools of water, clouds of dust but the story that at this time of the year every small hill always make a name. It may sound ridiculous but the truth is that traveling from Bamenda to Donga Mantung or Menchum demands two sets of dresses, one for the dust and another to wear at the destination. I am sure the CPDM BIGWIGS will come along with more sets. 

The state of nature of the Bamenda Ring road has made it in such a way that it is the nature of the dust or mud that determines the transport fare. 

In case of any disaster as was the case of Lake Nyos, evacuation of victims will not just be be problem but would contribute to destroy lives that would have been saved. If we go by the popular saying that where the road passes development follows, then the people of Donga Mantung Division who rely on the Ring Road will never dream of any meaningful development. 

I wish I were eloquent to put down on paper the picture that comes to me from the restrained of anger and cough due to the dust on the ring road. I need not dwell upon the authenticated horrors of the Nazi internment camps and death chambers for Jews. That is not tragic but a kind of insane horror. It is the ring road which is tragic. The essence of tragedy is not the doing of evil by evil men but the doing of evil by good men, out of weakness, indecision, sloth, and the inability to act in accordance with what they know to be right.

The ring road, until its termination, presents the classic existential argument about the existence of God or a higher power: if he did and does exist, then the only natural choice is to become a disciple is to be in the CPDM; but if he did not, then there is no afterlife, then life is meaningless in this part of the country even if the entire region signs a People's Call for President Biya as NATURAL CANDIDATE. 

Hence, there is nothing to be done except to live every moment without a thought to the next. The state of nature of the Ring Road has made Donga Mantung an Island on land which makes them to feel and to be powerless to influence the life of society by which their own life is governed. Change can occur only by a great increase of participation and responsibility on the part of those who now are well fed and amused but are excluded from effective participation in political decisions or in the policies of the institutions and enterprises they work in. 

Today, thinking and feeling are more and more separated from each other, and this separation leads either to an almost schizophrenic intellectualism or to a neurotic, irrational emotionalism-THE PEOPLE'S CALL. Only if emotions and reason are brought together can man function in a way which makes life interesting and hence creates the possibility of a productive life. To put it briefly, what Donga Mantung people need is not speeches but a road that can make life more meaningful and bring back humanity from the wilderness closer to the people. 

One could argue that the absurdity of The Satanic Verses has in fact complemented Islam as it has increased the attention people have for understanding why there is so much controversy. But what will the People's Call change on the Ring Road? This is my question to the Donga Mantung CPDM elite led by Fuh Calistus Gentry.......

Coming up soon: A Critical Judgment Analysis on FAINAP, another Creation of Dr. Fuh Calistus Gentry

When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)