Evaluating PM's dual mission to "risky SW Region".

His high-profile delegation, protected by heavily armed security escorts with other troops, lined on the streets from Tiko to Buea. It was indicative of a perilous mission with a partisan political and State agenda.

The government business was to chair the sixth session of the Steering Committee of the Presidential Plan for the Reconstruction and Development of the North West and South West Regions and evaluate its progress.

It was launched in 2020, at a cost of 154 billion FCFA planned to last for two years.

Five years after, only about a third of the amount, 50 billion FCFA, has been raised. France and the United States conditioned their participation on the implementation of a genuine dialogue to end the armed conflict in the two "risky" Regions of the North West and South West.

So far, only Japan and the United Nations Development Programme have chipped in cash to finance infrastructure and rehabilitation projects in the two Regions.

Dion Ngute was, however, optimistic, pointing for instance, to the Government Technical High School, GTHS Ombe, where he inspected a 142 million FCFA project, built under the framework of the reconstruction plan. 

It should be recalled that its historic campus was untouched by the conflict but for six students who were kidnapped and their parents paid ransom for their freedom after some remained in captivity for over five months.

As far as the evaluation mission was concerned, the icing on the cake was the announcement of a plan for the construction of a state-of-the-art stadium in Kumba, a project worth 500 million FCFA. 

The landmark initiative will be executed through a tripartite venture by the Kumba City Council, Société Anonyme des Boissons du Cameroun, SABC, and the reconstruction plan. 

Observing that the Kumba stadium project was too little, too late for an impressive score, the Head of Government conceded that: "Obviously, the needs are enormous. I appeal to those who can contribute. The government is making efforts. We have donors who are also making efforts. We have some countries that are already supporting us, and we are asking those that have not yet registered to make an effort so that we can increase the number of projects".

The Guardian Post joins the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Dr Chief Joseph Dion Ngute, a refined gentleman with the Chevening culture, to hope that more donors will be generous to support not just reconstruction but end the bloody conflict for peace to return.

Scene two of the mission was campaign time. Draped with a CPDM muffler, he told reporters after attending a ruling party's rally that: "The President of the Republic, National President of the CPDM, has always been very concerned about everything in the South West Region”. 

He added that: "This meeting gave me the opportunity to discuss some of those issues;  the issue of SONARA, the Tiko Airport, the roads in the South West Region, the agricultural entities, the CDC and PAMOL.  Those are the major concerns of the South West Region and it gave me the opportunities to explain to them [CPDM militants] that all these projects are on board. They are being realised. I explained the procedure to them and from the applause you can see they are very happy".

But truth, alien to many politicians, should be told. How many times have people of the South West Region been told that "SONARA will be rebuilt soon"? Have such promises not been made in the past four years and broken since when four of its 18 production units were razed?

In over four decades, have people of the South West and North West Regions not been told the "reopening" of the Limbe Deep Seaport was soon? Was it not economically cheaper and shorter to construct the Chad oil pipeline to Limbe, but it was directed to Kribi?

President Paul Biya, a natural candidate of the ruling party promised to extend the Tiko International Airport and the world was told the contract had even been awarded but it remains a yawning promise.

In the same vein the promise to tar the Bekoko to Idenau road and Mutengene to Buea glossed with a flyover in Mutengene, this year remains in limbo, with six months to the end of the financial year.

The evaluation of the Prime Minister's second agenda was successful with party elite, including traditional rulers, receiving him at the Mungo Bridge, meandering through a dead trap of a road stretch passing through an electronic toll gate which commissioning was announced months back, then kept in the freezer with no official reason.

Cheering militants were at the Mutengene Roundabout to wave him and his entourage as they continued to Mile 17, where he had a political stopover. 

It was a successful campaign trail, but as the legendary Achidi Achu, RIP, said: "Politics na Njangi, you scratch my back I scratch yours". Only the coming elections will prove that the people of the South West and their North West cousins are really "happy" with the regime. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3462 of Monday June 02, 2025