Infrastructural Development is one of our main preoccupations in Nwa

 –Lord Mayor

Dr Ngomfe Loma David Moloh, Lord Mayor of Nwa Council, hails from Luz in the Fumteh Clan and has worked as chief Medical Officer in many hospitals around the country. He was one of the earliest District Medical Officers that were posted to Kumbo and has also worked in Nkambe and Ndu in the same capacity. He became Mayor of Nwa since April 6, 2000 when he was District Medical Officer for Ndu District Hospital. In this interview by Francis Ekongang, the Lord Mayor states that his main preoccupations are Education and infrastructure.

Considering that you had a wonderful career as a Medical Doctor, what inspired you to get into politics?

That’s an interesting question. In fact this same question was asked me by an old woman in the village. She said when I was in Nkambe she came consulting and was always happy with the attention and care she received. In my absence she said when she went for consultation she complained that she couldn’t get the attention she needed. She then asked me why I had abandoned the hospital to work as a mayor. I told her to accompany me to GHS Luz. There are actually three main buildings in the school. I asked her if she knew who had constructed any of buildings and she indicated one of the buildings that had been constructed by the PTA and indicated another one constructed by the council. Then I asked if she knew the cost of each of the buildings. The cost of a building was 15 million FCFA. I then told her that if I came here as an elite and they were asking people to donate for the construction I would not give more than 500.000 FCFA. The fifteen million which had constructed the building had been made available simply by the signature of the mayor I explained to her. I then told her that my main reason of leaving medical practice to become mayor was simply because the Sub Division was completely underdeveloped. Many politicians from this area spend time concentrating on self aggrandizement and have hardly ever given a glance at the area.

Can you shed light on the history of Nwa Sub-Division? 

This Sub-Division was created in 1963 with three clans; the Fumteh Clan, the Yamba Clan and of course the Mbaw clan but all along the Sub Division has been having municipal administrators only from the Yamba Clan. Fortunately or unfortunately the Mbaw Plain is the most fertile and the richest part of the sub-division. Because it is a plain, most people are doing their farming there and that is therefore the most developed part of the municipality. The hilly Yamba area is essentially good for animal rearing. Most of the Yamba people have moved down to the Mbaw Plain to engage in farming. For some reasons the road could not get to the Fumteh area which is nearer the wimbum land and the resources in the area have remained untapped.

How has the influence of the Social Democratic Front and the ruling CPDM party influenced politicking in the area?

You will be surprised that for about 55 years that is since 1963, I am the only person from Fumteh to have risen to any reasonable position in the council. Most of the administrators have come from one clan; the Yamba Clan. From 1963 to 1967 it was Honourable Yoh who came from Luz and since then no one has come from that area. From the Mbaw Plain there was Honourable Mboya in the fifties and since then no administrator has ever come from Mbaw so the political scene had been dominated by the Yambas up to the time I took over. Coming to the SDF and the CPDM since 1996 the SDF controlled the council up to 2007. I am unable to see a single building they ever built anywhere. The only thing I saw that they supported is the bridge between Sih and Ndoyadji. I don’t see anything that they did, not even a latrine to show for their stay in the council. With the CPDM I think I changed the face of the council in Nwa. Where we are sitting is in a magnificent building and it is the first of its kind in Nwa Sub-Division. Nobody should say it was in those days. In the days that SDF was in control here, town halls were being built.  It was when the CPDM came in that the road from Gom to Nwa was done and we are now able to pass through Gom from Nwa. For 11 years, nothing was done and despite all that is being done, many villages remain enclaved. They may say that at the time the setup was not decentralized but there was the additional council tax which was 26 million FCFA and now they are giving us about 40 and something million FCFA. At least you should show us one thing which was done with 26 million except the bridge in Sih and this came with support from the Ndoyadji people. They have testified to me and if you get there they will testify to you.

How satisfied are you with regards to meeting up with your aspirations as mayor?      

I always tell anybody who cares to know that if you want to improve upon the life of a person you educate that person and he will eventually use his senses to improve upon his own life. I therefore took education as my first priority. When I came, children were reading under trees. We have been able to build at our own standard however and using a participatory approach more than 20 primary schools. Today we have more than 60 support staff for our primary schools and out of this number 40 have been trained at the Baptist Teacher Training College BTTC Ndop to become Grade one Teachers.

Do you have a message for your people?   

 I want to tell the municipality that one of the reasons why we have not been lifted to the level of a Division is the complete absence of infrastructure in this Sub Division especially in Nwa. That is why infrastructural improvement has been one of my main preoccupations. To realise this, I have allocated parts of the forest as free land for any elite who is prepared to come home and construct. Once we have the buildings, Nwa will be uplifted.    

 Edev Newspaper/ Email: edevnewspaper@gmail.com/ Tel:+237678401408/ 696896001

At Nwa Council Mini Agro Pastoral and Artistic Show

Donga Mantung SDO says rural world is architect for development

The Seniour Divisional Officer for Donga Mantung, Nkwenti Simon has declared that the Rural World constitutes the main architect for the development of Cameroon. He was speaking on the twelfth of December 2017 during the Mini Agro Pastoral and Artistic Show organised by the Nwa Council at the newly constructed market in Sabongari. 

Dr. Ngomfe Loma David Moloh

This important Annual rendezvous was made possible by the Nwa Council and its Lord Mayor Dr. Ngomfe Loma David Moloh with the collaboration of the Divisional Delegation for Agriculture and Rural Development in Donga Mantung.

Describing Sabongari as the bread basket of the North West Region, Nkwenti Simon regretted that the area still had problems of communication which he said was making it impossible for local farmers to benefit from the fruits of their labour. The massive turnout of the population to observe the event he said was an indication that the Sub Division was moving in the correct direction adding that Agriculture, Livestock breeding and craftsmanship remained a way of life in Nwa Sub Division. He further called on the population not to listen to propagators of terror and ghost towns stating that the ghost was not synonymous to hard work but rather to death. “Fetch those involved in any incidents here in Sabongari” he said “and they will be brought to justice.”

SDO for Donga Mantung Division Simon Nkwenti and Lord Mayor Nwa Council cutting the ribbon at the Sabongari Market

He however conceded that Anglophones had genuine problems but said that the government was solving some of them already. He said it didn’t make sense for children to be kept at home and out of school if the problems presented were already being looked into. 

Lord Mayor Ngomfe Loma David Moloh said fighting poverty constituted an important aspect of meeting up with the development goals of the Nwa municipality. The Mini Agro Pastoral and Artistic Show he said was an opportunity for farmers to discover each other and promote competitiveness and that the provided assistance from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development would go a long way to improve upon the activities of the recipient farmers. The Lord Mayor called on the farmers to diversify into crops that are imported into the municipality at the moment like carrots among others. He said traders locally referred to as Buyam Sellams should be discouraged from taking part in the initiative since they were simply middle men.

Ncham George, the Divisional Delegate of Agriculture and Rural Development for Donga Mantung said a total of 527 farmers were presenting about 1113 exhibitions and that almost all those who presented exhibitions were entitled to go home with something. The increasing attention of the government and private investors in agriculture and livestock he said was testimony to the fact that there was a lot of prospect in the sector.

 The Delegate said “just in the last months the government has provided three tons of maize seed to Nwa farmers, a good consignment of fungicides and insecticides to cocoa and coffee farmers, 260 bags of fertilizers to the cocoa and coffee farmers, the ACEFA programme in the Ministry Agriculture and Livestock has provided equipments, cassava grinding mills and warehouses to farmers, GP-DERUDEP has provided 40 000 chitted oil palm seeds and 19 tons of improved rice seeds to farmers and the FAINAP programme has provided 700 kg of improved maize seeds and is giving out 10000 oil palm seedlings to farmers.”

The occasion was graced by the presence of thousands who thronged the newly constructed Sabongari Market from Nwa Sub Division and beyond, colourful traditional dances from the various ethnic groups in the Sub Division as well as Traditional rulers.

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