By Pang Joseph, April 18, 2017
CAMEROON JOURNAL Kumba – Kumba, the economic nerve center of Anglophone Cameroon woke up last Monday, April 17 completely locked down in defiant of city officials who had Wednesday prior, sponsored an anti-civil disobedient rally meant to discourage and disrupt ongoing Anglophone protest against gov’t marginalization.
Contrary to the feelings among city authorities that civil disobedience in Kumba was dead, there was a general lockdown and majority preferred to stay indoors, despite messages by the anti-people rally asking residents to ignore ghost towns.
“Kumba is on a lockdown today”, a resident told The Cameroon Journal. Streets were deserted, and shops in remote quarters all closed. The SONAC street business hub and the Commercial Avenue were also emptied of their usual occupants and service users.
The Cameroon Journal spoke to some shop owners in the famous Fiango neighborhood who would occasionally muster the courage to defy ghost town to open their shops. They confessed that the ghost town of this Monday was very intense and they could not take the risk to open their shops.
Few taxis and bikes could be seen plying the streets. However, offices and banks remained closed. “We are not even open, we are just inside”, a banker said.
Victor Nkelle Ngoh, one of the organizers of the anti-ghost town march and Government Delegate to the Kumba City Council had denounced the ghost town operations, complaining that they have crippled the town.
SDO for Meme, Chamberlain Ntou’ou Ndong who was one of the sponsors of the protest has vowed to stop ghost town operations in Kumba and ensure the resumption of schools even though he failed to do same in Ndian where he was transferred from.
Kumba political elites of the ruling CPDM were so frustrated with the severity of the last ghost town operations that one of them threatened our reporter with arrest when asked to comment on the ghost town which has become known locally as ‘Contry Sunday’.
No comments:
Post a Comment