I Weep For Bamenda

By Canute Tangwa

Apparently, as a Buea boy I have no business weeping for Bamenda aka Abakwa. I should not weep more than the bereaved! However, two things took me up country: one that entailed weeping, pain and sorrow - the death of one of our best and brightest, Peter Terence Awa alias Peter T (Binot) and a joyous event in far-off Fundong - the traditional and 'whiteman' wedding of my friend in need and in deed, Ivo Lysinge or simply Papin or Marvé to friends.
 
I used a stone to shoot two birds! We hit the road from Douala in the evening of Friday, October 16. It was bound to be interesting because I was in the company of friends I have known for over 35 years!

At the rear seat of our vehicle were: Serge Tchwenko (Sergeo), a bundle of pure intelligence; Awa Pascal (Toholo-PK), a prototype of an untapped awesome intellectual baggage, and Albert Ndiba (Gabon), a fine, knowledgeable and ebullient personality. On the steering wheel was Gospel Onga (Apo), a formidable, intelligent, witty go-getter and beside him my humble self. Two members of the 1979 eclectic class, Njong Emmanuel (Old-Boy) and Ngatchu Henry (Nash) were already in Abakwa en route to Fundong to somewhat 'planter le decors' as the French would say. Mister Peter Canisius Akungha Yein (à papa) would later tongue-whip me for leaving him in the dark. Fortunately, he now knows why.

Any day and time I am bound for Bamenda, I remember the late Kotto Bass's hit song dubbed Bamenda. In the song he reels off the names of Bamenda personalities/statesmen, dead and alive. Some, like John Ngu Foncha, whose street is now riddled with pot holes and mud, would turn in their graves if they ever read this piece.

As we descended the Station Hill, I looked down to catch a glimpse of downtown Bamenda. It was dark except for pockets of lit up areas! I held my breath. In the good days, any visitor took in, sized up and appreciated Abakwa from the Station Hill. "Quelle beauté", a friend of mine exclaimed in 1989.

Today, the decay is knee-dip and shouting. We sped past Finance Junction and slowed down at Ngeng Junction not because of traffic jam but of the deplorable state of the road.  We swung towards SONAC Street hoping to catch the usual night revellers around former Zenon or so. Since there was no action around there, we moved on to the famous Commercial Avenue. There was no hustle, any snack bar or cabaret life…nothing! Bamenda used to wake up on a Friday as from 9 pm till dawn. Very few businesses can afford generating sets so they have to adopt break-even measures like closing early.

Formerly, we could have been spoilt for choice as to which night club, cabaret, snack or joint to go to particularly along Commercial Avenue. We met a semi-desert, dark and poorly lit Commercial Avenue and city. Someone proposed Dallas. We did not hesitate but Apo had to manoeuvre to get there for the road was an eyesore. The ambiance was fairly good, the music below par for guys cruising in from Douala-Mbeng, the services were satisfactory and the call girls aplenty. We guzzled beer and listened to jarring renditions of tunes or hit songs of yesteryears.

Then I spotted my younger brother, an excellent ball juggler turned developer, some distance away from the Government Delegate of the Bamenda City Council. He electrified the atmosphere.  Booze flowed and there was mirth. Apparently, the keeper of the keys of the city of Bamenda (once described as a pig with a golden ring) was lionized by bigwigs from Yaounde. Peter T's death and the state burial of Ambassador Akum Nchotu could easily explain the presence of top personalities in this place of last resort in Abakwa.

At around 3:00 am we decided to retire. But our intestines had already started complaining. We badly needed a bite. We began a frantic search. Every available restaurant was closed. Fortunately, there was this lady around former Black and White Nightclub at Nkwen who operated an open air cafeteria. We went down to business and retired to our various abodes with the hope of seeing Abakwa by day.

When we met the following day everyone commented on our night experience. Two of my friends who lodged at Ayaba had a bizarre story to tell. The lifts were seemingly not operational. So, if a visitor's room is on the third floor, he/she has to use but the staircase! At Le Bien, the proprietor has to make do with a generator but at a price for the visitor: lights out after 11pm!
Bamenda by day looks like a battered truck in need of urgent repairs.

It has been buffeted by the New Deal, the wind of change; scratch my back and I scratch your back brand of politics, socio-economic neglect and opposition politics. Seemingly, Bamenda is paying the wage of being an opposition town. The intrepid Ntemfac Ofege states clearly that when the 1999/2000 state budget was CFAF 1,100 billion, the Northwest got less than two percent of the total revenue!  In the morning of Saturday, October 17, I decided to board a motorbike (bendskin), in order to beat the traffic jam at Nkwen, for the Bamenda mortuary.

From Ndamukong Street, we rode through Mile 2 Nkwen, down towards the former Rota Snack Bar and veered towards Cow Street through Ngeng Junction, City Chemist Roundabout towards the market and took a short cut to the mortuary. From the mortuary, the bendskin made a detour via Ntamulung, Two Bridge and unto Nkwen. From thereon we sped to Bob Fula Junction in Ndamukong Street. I saw what the French term, 'Bamenda profond': poor road infrastructure and underdevelopment.

Driving from Big Babanki to Fundong, I thought aloud why the tourism industry is still at its infancy in Cameroon; why such splendour characterized by high rolling and undulating hills, interlocking spurs, sparkling streams and rivulets gushing from limestone and granite hills, high and low savannah, mini-waterfalls that drum all day, plains, plateaux, gigantic rocks protruding from imposing hills and hillocks, grazing cattle, velvet contours indicative of farming activity, zigzags from Njinikom to Fundong, lush valleys full of palms, farmlands and fruits coupled with the clement climate escaped the muse of poets and writers like Mbella Sonne Dipoko, the late Bate Besong and Bole Butake. The beautiful town of Fundong rests on a plateau.

Where there is beauty there is always a beast lurking somewhere. Allegedly, a village tyrant of sorts has taken most of the magnificent hills and hillocks hostage. When he lets loose his herd of cattle, it crushes everything on its path and no one dares raise a finger!

Back in Bamenda, there was some good news; work is currently going on to ensure a hitch-free supply of electricity. As we took the last bottles of beer at Dallas I regretted the following: I did not have a one-on-one with the Government Delegate nor did I pay a visit to the Fons.

Comments

[Toivi]

i wonder if any right thinking man nor matter his political leaning would ever be ok with the mess those people are made to go through.
Some say its because its an opposition town. What i irony. We shout everyday the country is a democracy where political tolerance exists, just to turn around and cause a people to shrink in to hell for daring to speak out the truth.
Thats our cameroon, preaching virtue practicing vice.
who ever says a bad government would ever dine with advocates of freedom of speech.

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