Citizens nervous as over 31 die in road accidents within two weeks!.

Many citizens have continued to discuss the topic of deadly road accidents from a defeatist point of view. Some are now saying even measures which government claimed were taken in the past, have yielded little or no fruits.

It is now a country wherein many consider having a safe ride to and from a destination, a miracle! Observers appear unanimous that it ought not to be so, if the powers that be had been doing the right thing. 

Experts cite the required investment in building modern road infrastructure, the putting in place of rigorous control mechanisms to ascertain the road worthiness of vehicles, issuing of drivers’ licenses and follow-up of basic safety rules as wanting.

Nationwide lamentations, owing to the blood of citizens that continue to cry on different axes given the painful nature of their unavoidable exits from this world, are on the rise.

Many in the corridors of power, transport industry and drivers alike, critics say, know what to do but have failed to do so in the interest of the nation to avoid the embarrassing deaths through road accidents. 

Responsibility for the many deadly road accidents, they say, lies squarely at the doorsteps of government; for always being reactionary instead of being proactive.

Like in 2021 and periods before now, the fear and worry among citizens are based on two deadly accidents within the last two days that have claimed at least 31 lives. 

These accidents that have left dozens of families in irreparable pain and deflated the human capital potential of Cameroon, many agree and rightly so, could have been prevented if those handed certain responsibilities were serious about serving the nation.

An accident, May 27, claimed 15 lives with at least 11 being members of the same family. This happened along the Douala-Edea axis in the Sanaga Maritime Division of the Littoral Region. 

It involved a Hiace bus and a truck transporting sand. The victims were traveling to bury their relative in Eseka, Nyong and Kelle Division of the Centre Region.

Transport Minister, Jean Ernest Messina Ngalle Bibehe, who rushed to the accident scene, intimated that it may have been the consequence of over-speeding and wrong overtaking. Most of the bodies of most of those who died were dismembered.

The bleak cloud that enveloped the nation from the Edea-Douala axis was coming days after another heart-wrenching accident in the locality of Bindiba in the East Region. 

The accident, which occurred along the Gaoura-Boulai-Ngaoundere stretch, involved a bus belonging to Touristique Express. It tumbled severally, claiming 15 lives. This was on May 9. The bus had left Yaounde for Ngaoundere but ended up veering off track and prematurely ending lives.

In a note after the accident, transport Minister, Jean Ernest Messina Ngale Bibehe, said those who died aged between 69 and 70 years. Among the dead were seven men, seven women and a 10-year-old. 

He had also said administrative authorities were coordinating ground action to assist victims. Critics say such postures only speak of government’s unacceptable dormancy in tackling issues to avoid catastrophes that take the nation backwards. 

We can’t also forget the Friday March 31, 2023, Moliwe road crash on the Ombe-Moliwe stretch in Fako Division of the South West Region. It claimed six lives and left 21 other citizens with lethal injuries. 

That accident too involved a public transport bus and a truck transporting sand. The bus had about 25 persons on board. Most of them were students of Government Technical High School, GTHS, Ombe. Like other accidents, this too, was linked to over speeding and poor weather. 

Major accidents kill 135, injure hundreds in nine months 

In the first week of August 2021, at least 40 persons perished in three separate road accidents in the country within two days. 

The first in Batchenga, Lekie Division of the Centre Region, claimed 22 lives. Like in other cases, it involved a bus and a truck transporting sand. 

Before the nation could recover from the pain, another accident within the same week left 16 people dead. The casualties resulted from a collision between a mini-trailer and a bus. Added to this, the third left 28 persons injured.

In a statement then, the Minister of transport blamed the situation on “the negligence of both intercity transport companies and freight carriers". Then, he threatened suspensions but two years on, many say the recurrent accidents show nothing has changed.

At the close of January 2021, at least 57 persons died in a collision between a bus and van transporting fuel in Dschang, Menoua Division of the West Region. 

On December 27, 2020, 37 other citizens perished in what has come to be known as the Ndikinimeki crash in the Mbam and Inoubou Division of the Centre Region.

The Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, of the Mbam and Inoubou Division, Absaloum Molowa Monono said the 70-seater bus “lost control and ran violently over Nemale Bridge and tumbled into the stream and stopped on the bank of the stream". 

At the hindsight of the figures of deaths related to road accidents are scores of others who are left disabled for life. Others end up being put in despondent situations which can’t permit them engage in any meaningful activities for life.

Citizens bare mind

A number of citizens whom The Guardian Post spoke to, were unanimous that there is need for a complete overhaul of the nation’s transport apparatus. 

Many of our respondents were categorical that in addition to the bad roads and human errors, the laxity of authorities is at the heart of the frightening number of accidents nationwide.

Prospere Ndzana, a Yoaunde city dweller, remarked that the terrifying number of road accidents only point to the government in place being dormant about sensitive issues. 

“Our roads are in a sorry state, coupled with the laxity of transport stakeholders. Agencies and unscrupulous drivers overload vehicles; some of which are in very bad state, drivers mount the steering in a drunken state while others are overworked. Who is supposed to control these? We are tired of empty press releases from the Minister of Transport. Government must do something to curb these road accidents,” Ndzana underscored.

For Njie Nicolas Ekema, what is happening on roads nationwide is a reflection of most sectors in Cameroon. 

So many things, Njie said, “are going wrong in our beloved country. How do you explain to a stranger that sixty years after independence, the road between the political and economic capital of Cameroon is still a deathtrap? I fear we are not developing. We are stagnant. Government must first embark on building modern roads, especially roads linking major cities to address this issue”.

Magadeline Halilou, who told The Guardian Post that she frequents the West and East Regions for businesses, rather blamed everyone in the sector. 

Halilou said while many are right to blame the authorities for not constructing good roads, the blame also goes to a vicious cycle of irresponsibility among stakeholders.

“Those who get authorisations promising to respect laws in place don’t do as promised. The persons who are supposed to ensure regularity are complacent. Security persons at checkpoints and road safety officers are corrupt while drivers don’t have enough rest…,” she said, submitting that the accidents are the product of errors on all sides which consequence is the increasing number of deaths on roads.

Revisiting statistics on disturbing losses for nation

In August 2018, statistics of findings on Cameroon's Road Safety Performance Review, RSPR, left stakeholders perplexed. 

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, UNECE, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, ECA, accompanied the Ministry of Transport then in conducting the review.

The findings were presented during a national workshop which spanned August 23- 24, 2018, to mark the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety in Yaounde.

Jean Todt was in attendance then as the United Nations Secretary General's Special Envoy for Road Safety. Then, it emerged from the review that Cameroon records annually 16,583 road accidents, which claim over 1,000 lives. 

Within that period too the World Health Organisation, WHO, was putting road accident deaths at over 6,000 persons. The economic cost of the accidents then was put at 100 billion FCFA yearly. The figures were said to be an equivalent of one percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP.

Officials said then that if the accidents had been avoided, the money could be used to construct 10,000 classrooms, tar over 250 kilometres of roads and construct eight Referral Hospitals within two years!

That historic gathering had risen with government having been urged to redouble road safety. But five years down the road, the situation, observers say, pointing to existing statistics, is rather worsening. Many say it is high time government reinvents a fresh holistic approach to solve the problem before it gets out of hand.