NW,SW Crisis: South West Governor Sensitises Against Mass Exodus

After two sequential communiqués to the public, Bernard Okalia Bilai, Governor of the South West Region, was personally at the Buea Mile 17 bus station on September 15, 2018, to sensitise panic-stricken passengers, drivers, bus owners and park boys on the dangers of massive exodus triggered by rumours of an imminent military assault and restriction of movement in the Region.

Stepping into the bus station by midday, Governor Okalia Bilai was shocked at the thousands of people apparently stranded without ready buses to board, tons of luggage and households displayed on the ground and the physical depression worn in the faces of those seeking for bus tickets to move out of the Region. Some fluent speaking passengers told the Governor that gun bullets had pierced through the walls of many houses along the road and in the quarters and villages.

Others spoke of avoiding remaining alone in localities where everyone else had moved out. Yet, one eloquent and bold lady-traveller told the Governor that the social media had announced an imminent military assault in the South West Region and that a greater deployment of troops was already being observed around.

As such, the panicstricken population of the Region, notably from Buea, Kumba, Limbe, Mamfe, Muyuka and Nguti were drifting to safer ground outside the Region and especially to Douala, Nkongsamba, Yaounde and other neighbouring francophone areas.

In a fatherly response, the Governor reminded the travellers of the dangers of abandoning their homes to thieves, quitting their businesses for misery and moving into strange towns without adequate means of survival.

Okal...