PM Urges NW Elites, Traditional Rulers to End Ghost Towns

Cameroon’s Prime Minister and Head of Government, Chief Dr. Joseph Dion Ngute, has called on elites and traditional authorities in the North West region to help lift ghost towns, which often lead to the shutdown of schools, businesses, and social activities.

He described the regular ghost towns as detrimental to the region’s development and progress.

The appeal was contained in a post on X, summarizing his 72-hour visit to Bamenda, the North West regional capital, over the weekend.

According to official statements, the Prime Minister was in Bamenda to chair the seventh steering committee meeting of the Presidential Plan for the Reconstruction and Development (PPRD).

“I was able to put my finger on the immense achievements of the Presidential Plan for the Reconstruction and Development of the North-West and South-West Regions,” Dr. Dion Ngute stated.

“I am happy to bear witness to life returning to the city,” he said, adding that the people he met in the region displayed remarkable resilience despite the protracted armed conflict.

“I call on the elites and traditional authorities to lift once and for all the ‘ghost towns’, which are so detrimental to the development of the region,” the Prime Minister said after returning from Bamenda.

How Ghost Towns Started

Although the Prime Minister has appealed to elites and traditional rulers to end ghost towns, in reality, they are not the ones implementing them.

Ghost town operations in the North West and South West regions began in October 2016 following strikes by lawyers and teachers of Anglophone extraction.

When these professionals failed to reach an agreement with the government, the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium was formed to coordinate further dialogues.

In January 2017, as schools were expected to resume for the second term of the 2016-2017 academic year, the Consortium announced ghost towns as a strategy to pressure the government into addressing Anglophone grievances.

On the first Monday of school resumption, towns across the Anglophone regions were deserted—schools, businesses, and social activities came to a halt.

This civil disobedience continued for weeks, with markets only opening on Sundays to allow people to stock up on food.

Government Crackdown and the Rise of Armed Fighters

Instead of resolving the grievances through dialogue, the government responded with arrests.

Consortium leaders, including Barrister Agbor Balla and Dr. Fontem Neba, were detained, while others like Tassang Wilfred and Bobga Harmony fled into exile.

The government also threatened to suspend teachers’ salaries if they did not return to work.

In the vacuum left by the arrested leaders, a separatist movement emerged. The so-called interim government of “Ambazonia” was formed, with Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe as president. He and other leaders are now incarcerated in Yaounde.

What began as peaceful protests and civil disobedience eventually morphed into armed conflict, with fighters enforcing ghost towns through threats and violence.

Nine years into the crisis, the original architects of the ghost towns have long renounced them.

However, by then, armed groups had taken control, and the situation escalated beyond the grasp of those who initiated it.

The Prime Minister’s call for an end to ghost towns, though well-meaning, may have been directed at the wrong audience.