CENPA crowns Chenwi Peter Most Resilient, Innovative, Dev’t-Oriented Mayor.

This was Thursday July 25 during CENPA’s maiden award night, which took place at Yaounde Hilton Hotel.

CENPA, it should be noted, is a grouping of 35 English language newspaper publishers in Cameroon. It was created with the main objectives being to promote national unity, peace reporting and responsible journalism.

Held under the distinguished patronage of the Minister of Communication, the event saw the presence of top government officials, members of the diplomatic corps, political, religious, civil society and traditional authorities, among others.

The award jury was led by Barrister Akere Muna (President), Senator Ekoko Mukete Ekoko IV (Secretary), Esther Omam (Member) and Kristian Ngah Christian (CENPA President).

The award jury said Chenwi Peter won the award of Most Resilient, Innovative, Development-Oriented Mayor, for his “unwavering commitment in the development of the Bamenda II municipality; through local adaptive measures that have made decentralisation real to the population, despite security challenges”.

Mayor Chennwi’s development actions in Bamenda II

The results-driven Mayor Chenwi Peter is known for his actions that have boosted the development of Bamenda II municipality. Some of these are actions are also humanitarian, which have improved the lot of the underprivileged and vulnerable.

He has donated to school-going children during the peak of the eight-year Anglophone crisis, canvassing for effective back-to-school and has also been able to organise the motorbike riders’ syndicate in Bamenda II to which he has provided driving licenses, donated reflective vests, helmets, among other items. 

Known for the common parlance of "we are here to serve not to be served”, Mayor Chenwi is peculiar for his pragmatism in alleviating poverty by coming to the aid of several Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, the physically challenged and other persons living with disability.

Several communities now drink potable water thanks to the several boreholes constructed by the Mayor. He has also carried out regular supply of medical equipment to integrated health centres and recently purchased of heavy-duty equipment to put an end to the perennial issue bad roads in his municipality.

Mayor Chenwi has also carried out other development and humanitarian actions such as promoting education by donating books and other didactic to school-going children, reaching out to and supporting ‘buyam sellams’, donating poultry equipment to Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, to start up a business.    

In terms of other humanitarian actions, he has always assisted Muslims within his municipality whenever they are observing fasting. He has often donated to Muslims to enable them go through their fasting period with ease and celebrate Ramadan graciously.

Prioritising healthcare

In his strive to boost the wellbeing of the people of his municipality, Mayor Chenwi has also prioritised healthcare. He has led the Bamenda II Council to donate medical equipment to ease work at the Atuakom and Ntambang Health Centres. 

Some of these equipment have comprised a microscope, adult weighing scale with and without height, children's weighing scale, photocopy machine, electronic blood pressure machine, vacuum extractor, autoclave, incinerator, wheelchairs, stainless steel delivery bed, glucometer, HP computer desktop, laser printer as well as a Haemoglobin metre.

At the time of the COVID-19 pandemic years back, Mayor Chenwi also undertook actions to curb the spread of the disease in his municipality. 

These actions included street sensitisation, donation of anti-COVID-19 kits; hand-washing buckets, soap, toilet rolls and hand sanitisers to a cross section of the population, and disinfection of schools against COVID-19, among others.

He has also boosted infrastructure development within the municipality by rehabilitating bad roads, constructing culverts and bridges. 

Promoting national unity through sports

The seasoned peace and unity advocate has also been promoting peace through sports. Since May 2020, he has been organising sporting activities for the youth, such as a marathon, swimming and lawn tennis competitions.

The maiden sporting competitions organised by the Bamenda II Council took place in May 2020. It held under the theme: “Youths and Elite Uniting for a Common Vision and the Fight against Covid-19”.

Bringing together youth and elite of the Bamenda II Municipality, it was organised within the framework of animating the spirit of peace, unity and love for one another in the face of the ongoing health and political crisis affecting the entire country and in particular the two English-speaking Regions. According to Mayor Chenwi Peter, the council was using sports as a vector for development and peace. 

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3186 of Thursday August 01, 2024