Anglophone crisis: Is Bamenda a fish pond or a specimen laboratory?

A prolific writer once wrote that “life itself is an episode in the general drama of pain”.

Bamenda, chief town of Cameroon’s Northwest region, described as the caesarean womb of the country’s democracy.

Bamenda is the live wire of Cameroon’s intellectual pool. For the past years, the city has been reduced to a theatre of the absurd.

Bamenda that metaphorically represents the Northwest region has become a TV set that children armed with a tele-command change the channels at their beck and call, and as their mood tells them.

This is done without care as to who is watching the TV. The start of the week ushered in some grim rumour that there was an upcoming lockdown christened after the sitting secretary-general of the United Nations, Anthonio Guterres.

The same rumours also have it that the Cameroon government has sent a document to the United Nations saying the war was over and that separatists want to show that nothing was over and that they are still in command.

This same cabal called for a two weeks lockdown to prove their point. They seem to have forgotten that the same official has been to Cameroon at a time the same lockdown was called, yet nothing came out of it.

The streets of Bamenda today are empty. Several groups fighting for the liberation of Ambaznia from the choking fangs of the Yaoundé centralized governments have again taken the people for granted.

Nobody consulted the people if they are in support of the lockdown or not. Nobody gave the millions of people who are now wallowing in misery meal or shopping vouchers to stock their homes with food.

The Ayaba Cho faction says no lockdown and Buea aligns.

Chris Anu and Samuel Sako Ikome say the lockdown must hold and Bamenda succumbs like sheep. It is increasingly clear that the likes of Chris Anu, Akwanga Ebenezer, and Samule Sako of the South West Region are bent on ruining what is left of the North West Region.

The lingering question many have asked, though rhetorical, has been who controls the Northwest region. Is it the Upstation command led by Governor Lele Lafrique, the Maryland government led by Sako or the gunmen on the ground who dictate the lifestyle in Bamenda.

Life in Bamenda has now become so miserable that it can be compared to a farm where the gigs and table birds depend on the master as to when they can breath, go out for a stroll or when and what to eat and how to eat.

Random kidnappings for ransom and the economic crunch have pushed many to now live a life style they never dreamt of.

Can Chris Anu and the Maryland cartel leave the North West Region to breathe?