Buea Authorities Shut Down Motor Park Over Separatist Lockdown Compliance

By Tata Mbunwe

The Mile 17 Motor Park in Buea remained closed for a third day on Monday, September 22, after municipal authorities sealed the busy park over users’ compliance with a recent separatist lockdown.

The Buea Council, led by Mayor David Mafani Namange, used cordoning tapes to block entrances and exits from the park on Saturday morning, just when the city was resuming normal activity following a two-week separatist lockdown that crippled economic and social activities.

The action barred vehicles from loading or offloading at the park and forced the closure of several shops located in the park.

The usually bustling park was scanty and just a few hawkers and bread sellers could be seen.

Inter-urban transport agencies remained locked on Saturday and Sunday, while clandestine transport cars loaded and offloaded on the peripheries of the park.

Mile 17 Motor Park is the major spot where people in Buea can board vehicles to other towns—including Yaounde, Limbe, Douala, Kumba, Muyuka and Mamfe.

Those coming into Buea must also pass through Mile 17. The municipal action is likely to harm not only bus drivers and shop owners, but the entire population of Buea.

Park users and drivers have strongly kicked back against the measure, faulting Mayor David Mafani Namange for further victimizing a population that is already harmed by recurrent separatist lockdowns.

Earlier this September, Mayor Namange threatened to crackdown on businesses that would be closed during separatist lockdowns.

Apart from ordering the closure of the park, he sealed dozens of shops in Molyko, Bonduma, Mayor Street, Mile 17 and other parts of the town for not opening during the lockdowns.

These separatist lockdowns, which were first enforced in 2017, are usually characterised by a total closure of shops, markets, schools, transport activities and leisure spots in the Anglophone Regions of Cameroon.

Buea residents say they comply with these lockdowns not out of support for the separatist cause, but because of separatist threats.

Separatists have historically targeted people who attempt to defy their lockdown calls, through extrajudicial killing, torture and arson.

In July this year, MMI reported how separatist fighters executed an off licence owner in Muea, Buea, for reportedly operating during Monday lockdowns.

But this was just one of several targeted attacks on people deemed to be going against lockdowns.

Buea residents say their security is not guaranteed when they operate during separatist lockdowns.

While municipal authorities who usually kick back against separatist lockdowns move with heavily armed security officers, citizens say there are no security guarantees for them to work on such days. Past attempts to get schools, shops and transport activities work normally have failed.

But either way, the population continues to bear the brunt of the protracted armed conflict that began as an industrial strike by Anglophone teachers and lawyers in 2016.