SCANT AID TO IDPs SUFFERING HEAVY LOSS? CAN SUGAR CUBE SWEETEN OCEAN?
BY MILDRED NDUM WUNG KUM
A wound is healed when sincere attention is paid to soothe the pain and cure the cause. The case is however different with people nursing wounds inflicted by the now perennial Anglophone crisis. What is at stake? The wounds are bleeding profusely but only palliative care is administered. It seems multiplying problems upon problems as government haughtily presents sugar cubes in oceans of water that end up doing nothing.
The issue of persons fleeing wars in parts of Cameroon’s northwest and southwest is now an everyday chore.
As if to add pain to injury, persons crying the loss of homes, property, jobs and loved ones are presented five kilograms of rice, four cuboids of washing soap, a mattress, a bucket, a few tins of sardine and five thousand francs.
What has been termed as humanitarian aid to persons affected by the Cameroon Anglophone crisis resumed this 2020 in the Northwest and Southwest Regions with utter disregard of real needs assessment. Governors, secretary generals to governors, Senior Divisional Officers and Divisional Officers posing as auxiliaries to President Paul Biya have been presiding humanitarian aid to hundreds of people posing as IDPs.
Many have said the so called gift to the suffering masses from the Head of States was less a gift as the package does not match what the affected people really need or neither is the gift worthy of its donor. Of what help is it for a government to offer five thousand francs to someone whose house was consumed by fire flames? What help is it to tell someone to go and vote when they are spending nights in the biting cold? Or what use is it to offer five kilograms of rice to a family of fifteen persons? These questions keep ruminating.
The scenarios have been criticised as putting a cube of sugar in an ocean of water.
IDPs receiving demeaning aid at Up Station Bamenda
The fallouts are clear and measurable; many more distrusting government, many more radicalising against government and many more fortifying as foes against government, making the fragmented one and indivisible Cameroon more vulnerable.
It becomes very worrisome that day in, day out, government puts itself in a blameable situation as the real cause of a crisis is not addressed nor measurable relief accorded to people groaning the pangs of war.
The outbreak and persistence of the Anglophone crisis has seen the birth and rebirth of governmental and none governmental organisations, but with the existence and multiplicity of government functionaries, should there not be increased and better relief services to the population?
The evidence would have been a devoted and serviceable government that would penetrate the nooks and crannies of the jurisdiction, do a thorough assessment of war aftermath, listen to the cry of people and address the intrinsic needs of the people.
Can government create job avenues for people who have lost their jobs within the crisis? For how long would people continue in the sorry state of a senseless war? The answer is blowing in the wind