This was one of our biggest and darling projects located in the former British Southern Cameroon. This establishment created jobs for thousands of its citizens and even after independence, it stood as the largest employer, directly employing more people than the state of  Cameroon.

Workers enjoyed many facilities such good houses, health, clubs, rest houses, lights, workers shops and so on. With each and every workers camp having a power house for energy, life was better. Workers could take anything they needed from the shops and deductions done at the end of month. C.D.C clubs usually pull the attention of the entire town on pay days.

During holidays students were given advantage of holiday jobs, and at the end of holidays one was proud in one way or the other to help their parents.  Aside from the direct benefits in employment terms, it generated huge tax revenue, and brought in foreign currency through the export of semi processed products like rubber. This farming corporation was truly a behemoth in Southern Cameroons and a pillar of symbolism to our identity.

Today the corporation has been raped and ruined completely by the La. Republic of Cameroon and the process started immediately after annexing us in 1961. As one of the last strategies of breaking it completely, they decided to create as many chiefs as they can and have over the years pretend handing over their land by carving out sections of land once cultivated for crops by the CDC,  but behind this scheme, the French Cameroon authority implanted administrators takes the best and larger chunks of these former farm lands.

The sad irony behind this de-agriculturalization of Southern Cameroons is that, the Cameroonian authorities is working daily to develop plantations in their French part of the country, newly planted and young development crops in CDC are increasingly destroyed with pretext of returning lands to the people whilst foreign companies such as Demonte are encouraged to expand farms the French section of the country. Do these people look like one we can live with? The answer is NO.

The defensive war of liberation being waged now is kneejerk reaction to decades of silence and calculated wars the French Cameroon authority has waged against the institutions, education, culture, economy, health and socio political fabric of Southern Cameroons. Southern Cameroonians by default are peace loving people but as they say, even a limbless human would fight back when pushed to the war. Southern Cameroonians has long been pushed to the wall and fighting is the only option.

Author: Michael Jingwa Forji – London, United Kingdom.

It is lamentable and embarrassing to say that the old maternity ward I was given birth to in the sixties was better managed and operated than the death trap found today in the name of ‘Tombel District Hospital’.

Touching on the appalling state infrastructure.

Constructed  in the late 1980s, this district hospital was relocated from it former colonial building to its current location, at Kupe Road. From inception, just like every endeavour undertaking by French Cameroon administrators on our territory, the infrastructure of this hospital has been a constant mess and hotpot for corruption. For a start, a water tank that was erected immediately after the hospital became operational has never stored water three decades after construction. A  huge hole that was dug for waste water treatment ended up as dumping site for hospital rubbish including clinical waste such as sharps, moist tissues etc. In fact, the proximity of this pit to the hospital facilitate itself is another high risk factor facing patients receiving treatment at the facility, talk less of uncountable cases of children who get injured and infected yearly when they run into this pit to play or collect waste hospital materials dumped there to play with.

A company contracted by higher authorities of French Cameroon  to construct the doctor’s residence, attempted to but the structure erected ended up as premises for the hospital night watchers or night security staff. Pondering why the security men, commonly classed (in Cameroon) among the lowest ranking jobs ended up living in the only residential building in the hospital? I’m sure your guess is best as mine.

The whole hospital area is constantly surrounded by bushes, rubbish litters everywhere and an exposed dump full of medical waste which promote breeding grounds for mosquitoes and snakes, just to name a few. Which medical doctor in their right senses would want to reside with their families in such a location? Just to conclude on this point. Translating what was supposed to be a modern four bedded apartment from paper to the ground led to the construction of  nothing more than a hut. Some of you reading this may think, obstacles came as result of difficult terrain of somewhat but in reality and culprit is never!! I’ll leave you to conclude.

The lighting system is a clear health hazard to patients in the hospital as the place is almost in constant darkness. The official garage to the hospital is full of fake electricity generators supplied by Cameroonian government contractors. The only efficient one that ever worked miraculously got vanished by a doctor for personal usage whilst patients are left at God’s mercy, as none left in the garage works. If not of few elites who donated some materials like mattresses and other furniture, then the situation would have been far worse.

Hospital Operations and Management.

Despite all the sad infrastructure short-comings, cost of treatment at the hospital is expensive vis-à-vis their government counterparts in neighbouring towns of Loum and Njoumbe of the French regions of Cameroon. No good doctor stays in Tombel District Hospital, with familiar  complaints of the poor state of hospital infrastructure. Due to the high rate of doctors turn over, nurses are often allowed to perform clinical procedures reserved for doctors, with dangerous and deadly consequences. Nurses and other hospital staff openly bring medical consumables such as drugs, bandages, drips etc. bought from the outside markets into the hospital wards to directly retail to patients on sick beds. It is common to observe nurses directly prescribe drips and administer from items picked from their hand bags. Such is the pitiful state of affairs in the 21^st century hospital, in Tombel.

While similar government facilities in nearby Loum and Njoube both private and district hospitals of French Cameroon flourishes with new medical equipment and facilities, that in Tombel crawls daily and continually degrades beyond comprehension. It has become a natural phenomenon for Tombel locals to ply the terrible road condition with their ill health to receive dignify medical in the opposite side in French Cameroon. The question I have repeatedly ask myself is, why?

Why do hospitals in the French speaking regions suffer less from corruption than those in the English speaking region, despite it being the Genesis of corruption into our region? Doing my research to this question, I found something interesting. Whilst the answer narrows down to a systemic plan of hooking us (Southern Cameroons) ever depended to French Cameroon, which isn’t strange nor new, but what is strange is the way this is implemented. One of the simplest ways the Cameroonian authority implements it dependency strategy on Southern Cameroons  is via turning a blind eye on corruption in the region or tacitly encourages one by constantly appointing authorities with questionable characters to the region. By doing this, our hospitals which is meant to be a place of healing and treating illnesses has become death traps that prematurely kills our people whilst keeping those who can afford to ply on their rough roads perpetually dependant on facilities in their French speaking regions.

It is fair to say that corruption is rampant in Cameroon, but where this has given free reign or even tacitly encouraged is in the northwest and southwest of Cameroon – aka Southern Cameroon Ambazonia.

Author: Michael J. Forji (London, United Kingdom).