POINT OF ORDER

By Amindeh Blaise Atabong 
 

Why the fuss with Bakassi SMS?

Of recent, I have been the target of a string of vicious attacks by a couple of telephone service providers.

In a move, presumably a sensitisation effort, I initially received this Short Message Service (SMS) text on my Camtel CT-phone: “People of Bakassi, FCFA is your currency, please use it!”

I perused through the text, though unenthusiastically, because I have never used any other currency in my Yaounde base, apart from the CEMAC FCFA. But hours later, another intruding text invaded my inbox. This time around, it read: “People of Bakassi, pay your taxes and custom duties to Cameroon authorities.” Before, I could finish reading, another Bakassi SMS bombed in: “People of Bakassi, go to Cameroonian police authorities to be aware of immigration laws, know your situation and regularise it.”

Much later, similar flimsy Bakassi SMSs took hold of my phones and left me with the retaliation action of liberating my inbox from unsolicited messages. And behold, I wasted about 1 hour of precious duty time to delete the over 50 misdirected messages with no reply path.

At this juncture, I began to wonder who the original target of the SMSs were, for the last time I visited the Bakassi peninsular, precisely in Jabane in November 2013, I was deprived of Camtel network and barely struggled to get very weak signals: one from Nigeria and the other from a Cameroonian service provider who was not part of the Bakassi SMS exercise.

I wonder the number of Bakassi residents who received this SMS.

The recent Bakassi SMS sensitisation leaves me with the impression that most members of the Bakassi commission led by Ndoh Bertha Bakata do not have a field experience of what the situation looks like in the primarily remote villages of the peninsular. They need to spend two nights, like I did, on thatched houses constructed on tree storms in the swamps; get up and fish in the risky and turbulent waters, take the harvested fish to local markets in Nigeria and Cameroon for sale and then see the price difference. Maybe from there, they would condone with our Bakassi compatriots who fell more Nigerian than Cameroonian.

The predominantly poor fishing population in the creeks, majority of who don’t have the privilege of owning even ‘Kumba bread’ phones, do not need messages crafted in elitist language to start regularising their situation. All they need immediately is adequate social amenities.

Instantly put at their disposal only half the comfort we enjoy in our big cities and behold all and sundry, including unborn babies will choose to be Cameroonians. They will abandon the Naira for the less-valued FCFA and will report all their worries to corrupt Cameroon officials.

Ever since government took over total control of the Bakassi peninsular on August 14, 2013, in line with the Green Tree Accord, the much heralded response to the quest for social amenities has been wanting in time delivery.

Even the chairlady of the Bakassi Commission, Ndoh Bertha recently admitted that some priority projects earmarked for the zone were still far from completion, barely three months to the end of the fiscal year.

The senders of the Bakassi SMS may be dodging from the reality which can change mentalities in the peninsular. But if I must speak as a member of Ndoh Bertha’s commission, then the following recommendations must be taken into consideration.

Road maintenance and construction projects should be awarded to patriotic contractors who have proved their worth in previous jobs in porous landscapes. Electricity, pipe borne water, telecommunication facilities, schools, recreational centres, hospitals amongst other amenities, should be looked into as a matter of urgency.

The Bakassi situation is so precarious that it does not suffice to hold coordination meetings in air conditioned board rooms in Yaounde or send alerts to people in Yaounde, Bertoua, Maroua, amongst others who are far off the priority area in question.

Well coordinated, timely and precise action will do a lot of good to the people in the oil-rich peninsular than the semblance of a waltz dance.

Another Bakassi SMS just entered my phone. So permit me to pause to enable me delete it. I will be back in a jiffy!