Jakiri Council covers giant strides in Education and infrastructure

Jaff Romanus Verkijika

Against a backdrop of socio-political crises in the two English speaking regions of Cameroon and the inevitable drop in revenue collection, the Jakiri Council under the stewardship of Lord Mayor Jaff Romanus Verkijika has registered impressive records in the domains of Education and infrastructure. This disclosure was made during the Council Session dedicated to the examination and adoption of the 2017 Administrative, Management and stores Accounts on Thursday March 29, 2018.

In the session which took place in the brand new giant edifice that will hence house the offices of the Jakiri Council, Lord Mayor Jaff Romanus Verkijika said despite all odds they had succeeded to complete the long awaited giant project. He said judicious use was made of the resources put at their disposal under very difficult circumstances due to the socio political crises in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon.

Considering the acute shortage of educational infrastructure in most primary schools in the Jakiri Municipality, the council constructed two classrooms and Head Masters office and provided equipment as well as benches at GS Kwanso and this took more than 20 million FCFA. The council was also involved in the rehabilitation of classrooms, recruitment and payment of local language instructors, the acquisition and distribution of minimum packages to Government Primary Schools, signing of a convention with FEICOM for the construction of 14 classrooms, offices and seven toilet blocks in seven schools within the municipality.

In the domain of infrastructure, the new council building which hosted the session was a glaring testimony of the councils’ infrastructural achievements. The building Jaff Romanus said had been completed and technically received. In the domain of transport infrastructure a seven Kilometer stretch of road was refurbished including culverts and other transport related infrastructure like drainage facilities. New roads were equally opened up including those around the new council premises totaling about three Kilometers. To ensure the sustainability of these roads 35 road maintainers were employed to work within the municipality for their upkeep.

Apart from education and infrastructure, Lord Mayor Jaff Romanus said the council also did an impressive job in other domains like water supply, health services, civil status registry, personnel, social affairs amongst others.

Commenting on the deliberations that took place, the mayor said “the deliberations of today were authorisation for our retired military people to have space where they can carry out their activities. The other deliberation was concerned with authorizing the mayor to pay its workers through the credit union that will facilitate their payments and will also help them to acquire loans. Another issue was also that of authorizing the mayor to take overdrafts from Banque Atlantique. Rents for lock up shades at Mbokam Market were also deliberated upon.

Other highlights of the session were the launching of updates of the Council Development Plan which was presented by the Global Welfare Association which was selected as the local support organisation to accompany Jakiri Council in the exercise.

The Lord Mayor thanked Development partners like FEICOM, PNDP, SEEPD, the Jakiri population among many others who had helped the council to realise its dreams.

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SHUMAS integrated Bio-Farm

 

The only centre with four components of renewable energy all in one place.

-Nformi Stephen Njodzeka Ndzerem

Stephen Njodzeka Ndzerem is the President General of SHUMAS; Strategic Humanitarian Services and the President General of the Nso Development Association NSODA. He hails from Bui Division specifically from Kumbo and has been the President of the Nso Cultural and Development Association for the last five years. SHUMAS, one of the most impacting NGOs in Cameroon is an organisation that he personally set on the ground about 20 years ago. He was interviewed by Francis Ekongang Nzante Lenjo.

In what domains have you been intervening with SHUMAS?

SHUMAS is a development Non Governmental Organisation that focuses on Integrated Sustainable Rural Development and on helping the urban poor. In order to propel us to reach everybody and a majority of people in the poor rural Communities and poor urban areas we have eight programmes. Firstly, there is Agriculture. In this domain we have the SHUMAS Bio-Farm and Renewable Technical Centre which is located in Kumbo where we train youths, women farming groups and admit students from all over the country and from different universities; University of Dschang, Ngoundere, Bamenda and all other Universities around the country and some out of the country. We admit them to do their internships at the SHUMAS Bio-Farm. At the Bio-Farm we have three types of trainings.

Tell us about your training programmes..

 First there is a two year programme where we train youth as professional farmers who can actually earn something and who can come out of their projects and set up their own training and become employers rather than going round looking for employment. The centre started about ten years ago and we have trained so many of them and I must also indicate that this 2-year programme is executed in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and of Livestock through the programme called AFOP and training actually is subsidized by the Government. Those at the Centre are given some assistance everyday for their feeding and those who finally graduate and write their projects receive about 1.5 Million Francs CFA to benefit from this project. The importance we attach to it is because of the huge potential that Agriculture has to actually kick poverty out of this country. The programme has been going since 2011 and lots of students have graduated and we have settled about 80 of them already. Our catchment area actually covers the Noun Division, Mezam, Ngoketunja, Bui and Donga Mantung Divisions. We also have the ten-month programme for those who cannot afford to come for a longer period. After training we do support them and here they have a registration of 10.000 Francs CFA. Training too is free but they provide for their feeding and we also provide them with plots where they cultivate what they will consume during training. After the training, we give them between a hundred and three hundred thousand Francs CFA. At the moment we are recruiting for the ten months because we are already finished with those for two years of training so there is still an opportunity for those who want to come to the centre. Another form of training is the short training course. These are specific tailored trainings in which people sometimes come in to get training on Bio gas systems, Renewable Energy or other specific trainings like on pigs and sheep. We receive about two hundred students on internship every year from different parts of the country and from outside the country who come to do their internship. We also have lots of study visitors who come to simply see what is there. The SHUMAS integrated Bio-Farm is the only centre in the world which has four components of renewable energy all in one place. We have the wind energy, solar energy, hydro energy and energy from the Bio-Gaz. Here we organise training in June when we train people on renewable energy with some of our experts from Spain and Switzerland. 

 Out of Agriculture, what other programmes are you involved in?

Education also comprises a very important aspect of our activities. It comprises about 70 to 80% of our budget. We construct and equip schools, from government schools, Baptist schools, Presbyterian and Catholic schools all over the country but we give preference to Government Schools and every year we construct about 80 classrooms around the country. Presently we have constructed over 800 classrooms in all the ten Regions of the country. We give preference to the Northwest Region and even more preference to Bui Division because while growing in Bui Division I saw the poverty that encouraged me to create SHUMAS so I feel that duty to see what I can do to change the situation.

What main school projects do you have in Bui?

 I must also state that in Education in Bui Division we have a good number of projects going on. We have the Government Technical College Jeibai in Djottin Noni, which just started today and the government Technical College Mbokive in Oku Sub Division which is almost completed. We also have Government School Ichim still in Oku. This year we concentrated in Oku and Noni because we have done very little in these two Sub Divisions compared to the others. We just handed in this school about a month ago in Douala. We built a laboratory and equipped it. The laboratory is worth 35 million and the Chiefs of Douala were impressed and decided to name one of the streets in Douala as Nso Street. We were very proud about it and consider it to be very good Cultural Diplomacy.

            

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Saint Elizabeth National Residential Nursing Home for the ageing is a rehabilitation centre. - Coordinator

 Langwa Elizabeth Fikela, coordinator of the Saint Elizabeth National Residential Home for the ageing and for rehabilitation has disclosed that apart from just being a residential nursing home, the centre rehabilitates and also takes care of abandoned orphans. She says the desire to care started from childhood and emphasizes that it is a gift from God. As she grew up, this tendency to gather old helpless people and take care of them grew. She begins by explaining how this urge pushed her into nursing. She was interviewed by Ekongang Nzante Lenjo.

From childhood I loved to care so I think it is a gift from God. This pushed me into Nursing especially Geriatric Nursing which focuses on the old. You cannot only take care of the old people and leave the young behind. Experience has shown me that there are many old people with no one to take care of them and at the same time they have orphans of their children with no one to take care of them. We also come into contact with some aged people who are suffering from stroke and this is usually challenging to the family especially when there is no one to actually sit and take care of such cases. At the Rehabilitation Centre we also come into contact with mental cases and with cases of stroke and people in this state usually put the family down because there is usually nobody to sit down and take care of them. When you meet old people they are usually with the orphans of their children with no one to take care of them. That’s why I take care of old people and orphans.

So what is the first thing you do when you meet such cases?

When we meet them, the first thing we do is that we take them to the rehabilitation centre and try to rehabilitate especially the mentally unstable ones to try and come back to their normal condition and while in their unstable mental condition they also feel cared for. This stops them from feeling as if society has abandoned them.

Tell us something about the origin of this institution.

We started in Babungo and while there we covered Babungo, Baba and many other neighbouring villages. We had about 15 elderly people and around three to four orphans that we were taking care of. We take care of some of the people in their homes. Some families love their dear ones usually prefer that such care should be given to them at home. In such cases we arrange and send workers to go there. In the morning they can bath them and wash their clothes and in the evening another person can go there to take care of them at night. We still have people who come from Babungo and Baba. Once we came across an old man of about a hundred and fifty years in an abandoned house in the bush. We took him and brought him to the center and we are offering him care. When he started staying with us he became stronger. This pushed the relatives who had abandoned him to become interested in him again and they took it as a challenge and decided to take care of him.

Where exactly is your rehabilitation center?

Presently we have transferred to Sop in the Jakiri Municipality in Bui Division. Sop is located between Jakiri and Kumbo. There are many families with people who fall in the category of people that we cater for. The message I have for them is that they should stop thinking that it is only in the developed countries that these services are provided for. We also notice that in our society most old people are abandoned to themselves with nobody to take care of them and they die in very deplorable conditions. The disabled people also have the right to be catered for and to live normal healthy lives. In Cameroon we don’t offer this care. I use this medium to tell the people that we have a place to take care of those people suffering from mental instability, old people who are unable to take care of themselves, abandoned orphans and those suffering from stroke with no family member to take care of them.

Do you have some partners who support you?

I thank the Ministry of Social Affairs especially the Divisional Delegate of Social Affairs for Ngoketunja Division. We have worked with them for a long period and they have been so supportive providing us with wheel chairs. We equally thank the Regional Delegate of the Northwest Region. I also thank the individuals who always come and support us with food and the churches especially the Catholic Christians that have been coming and offering support to us. I also encourage anybody who is in a position to help to support us in any way possible. There are some that are abandoned and we are just helping them. Some need clothes, shoes among other things. The orphans that are here are going to school and there is nobody sponsoring them. Some don’t have shoes and uniforms with which to dress and go to school. If the spirit of God touches you that you should come and support this center then you are welcome and God will bless you.  

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The Regime in Cameroon has outlived its lifespan!

Professor Paul Nchoji Nkwi

Member, Cameroon’s Constitutional Council

Paul Nchoji Nkwi has been a professor of African Anthropology at the University of Yaounde I, the Catholic University of Central Africa, and the St Thomas Aquinas Major Seminary in Bambui. Professor Nchoji Nkwi, has a whole lot of achievements to his name. He was the founding President of the Pan-African Anthropological Association (1989-1994). In 1973, he won the Frobenius Essay Award and he has equally been Vice President of the African Academy of Science.In politics, he has served as the Policy Adviser of the Social Democratic Front (SDF).

Edev Newspaper’s Ekongang Nzante Lenjo caught up with Professor Paul Nchoji Nkwi shortly before his appointment by President Paul Biya alongside 10 others from the ten Regions of Cameroon. In addition to the multiple activities that the professor is involved in, he also teaches at the Catholic University of Cameroon in Bamenda. The professor in this interview states that the regime in Cameroon has outlived its lifespan and that in social history most regimes nose dive after a generation. He begins this interview by taking a look at 2017.

“I think 2017 was a tumultuous year at least among us from the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon. The Pandora’s Box virtually exposed some of the deep seated problems that we have lived through during the last fifty something years. It was the hope of many that the first six months would lead to a Constructive Inclusive Dialogue permitting all of us to seat around the table and talk about those basic problems of the country called Cameroon. This would have given us an opportunity to talk about the things that divide us as well as those that unite us. The real dialogue that should have occurred has not occurred.”

The President of the Republic is of the opinion that dialogue has already started and that he has been having useful feedback from the Commission of Bilingualism and multiculturalism that he created.

To begin with the Commission on Bilingualism, it is a farce. It is a hoax and it cannot solve the problem. That commission is an attempt to divert attention from the Anglophone problem to something which we do not need at this present moment in time. You cannot believe under any circumstance that there is dialogue simply because you send Mr. X to talk to Mr. B or whatever. That is not dialogue. It is a process that involves the collection of additional information to prepare your dialogue. The Prime Minister came, the ministers came sat around the table with all the stakeholders especially the teachers. The ministers were that of Justice and that of Education and they simply sat with these people in some sort of a fact finding mission. They simply came and talked to groups of persons and it was a fact finding mission to create grounds for a constructive and inclusive dialogue. 

Many said 2018 was going to be a very difficult year. Are facts on the ground are proving them true?

Let’s say that 2017 was a difficult year. Firstly most of our children stayed out of school. For parents to deny education for their children is terrible. So for parents or a group of parents to deny education for their children simply mean that they don’t think the existing set up can give their children the kind of education they need. There is no need churning out children from school without that quality knowledge and with little chances of them finding their feet on the ground. Many of our graduates are without jobs. Many of the bike riders in this town have degrees in their pockets. It means that the system has slowly collapsed to an extent where you need to bribe to go to professional school, you bribe to get elected. That is the system we find ourselves in. Take for example during the negotiations in its early stages that people drove up from Yaounde to talk with teachers and they tried to bribe them. If those teachers leaders were not morally grounded then these crises might have taken a different turn. The second thing is what none of us understands. Prime Minister Philemon Yang came here and the Ministers of Education came here and they sat and talked and agreed first on 19 points. They eventually prepared a document of 25 points. They were supposed to sign that document on a Wednesday and all those people were arrested on a Tuesday. Even if you call a dialogue today I will not come because I will also be afraid of being arrested. I think that one of the dramatic things that occurred at the end of 2017 was the failure of the Head of State to come out and tell people that I am sorry let us come together and talk as a family. Everybody was expecting this message but what did we hear?

What exactly did we hear?

The President is more preoccupied with his re-election and probably preoccupied with the reelection of those who have brought this country to its knees. And that is why he says it’s an election year. Is he telling those Cameroonians who were on the streets to come out and vote? 

With the realities on the ground do you think the chances of dialogue have completely collapsed? What do you foresee for Cameroon in 2018?

To begin with, dialogue has never started in Cameroon so dialogue did not collapse. What I see is the clamour for dialogue and I can say 80% of Cameroonians in the Northwest and Southwest Regions are in favour of dialogue that is inclusive and that opens the floor for us to explore what our problems are all about. They have rather told us that if you want to come to the table expecting that you will bring change to the nature of the state, then nothing will take place. The 80% that are in favour of dialogue have been pushed to the next possible move; that of civil disobedience. You cannot tell us to go to school and we go. We are not going to do anything that you tell us to do.  Take what happened in Tardu in Kumbo a few days ago and it has happened in many other places. They go into villages, brutalise innocent people, burn their houses and burn down their agricultural reserves. A person who has been virtually humiliated in this manner will hardly come to the dialogue table. The arrogance of those people against the church is absolutely the arrogance against God. Any regime that goes against God is digging its own grave. In the Democratic Republic of Congo the only way for Christians to demonstrate their anger is with their Rosaries praying in the streets. Is that what we want? The people who govern have forgotten one basic thing; that most regimes dictatorial or not usually have a life span of a generation and after that, they begin to nose dive and it may ultimately end in chaos. The Regime in Cameroon has outlived its lifespan. Those are realities in Social History. Take for example the Soviet Union which collapsed. The so called Soviet Union that assembled many nations and Russia was just one of them collapsed. The same thing occurred in Yugoslavia. Tito did everything to maintain his grip but failed and it broke into six different nations. It takes about 30 years and if Paul Biya had good advisers they should have told him that. If he left ten years ago probably he would be a happier person. The chaos and need to rethink the nature of the State in Cameroon is unstoppable.  You can go to Nigeria, catch people and lock them up, but you are merely igniting the process. 

Recently, Christian Cardinal Tumi and Arch Bishop Samuel Khleda called on Biya not to participate in any future elective exercise in Cameroon. What would you say to the President if you had a similar chance? 

My message will be the same. I will toe the Tumi line or the Khleda line. Time is up for the President to run and let us not chase him out. Let him willingly walk out but if he doesn’t work out he will be chased out. Where is Mugabe? He is happily retired. A new way of thinking and forces of violence are an indication that it is time for him to bow out. Take for example if it is true that soldiers in the army are deserting; you pick up soldiers from Yaounde to Mamfe and when you reach Kumba some disappear. Some get to Mamfe and disappear. Why? Do you remember that Indira Ghandi was shot by his own body guards at the end of a long line of the Ghandi family? The person who was supposed to protect him removed the gun and simply shot him. Imagine the guy who stole the brief case with money. That was his own way of saying “Pa I have been seeing you siphoning this money so let me take this.” It can get to a state where there is a revolt. He has served this country as Prime Minister, Head of State and it is time for him to quit and give other deserving sons and daughters of our country an opportunity to create a new sense of leadership.

It was a pleasure talking to you.
Thank you.

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