Gov't Delegate's agents, drivers clash at motor park

Some 10 youths claiming to be operating under an authorisation from the Government Delegate to the Kumba City Council, Victor Nkelle Ngoh, on July 18, clashed with drivers plying the Kumba-Mamfe Road at Three Corners Ntam Motor Park.

The clash is said to have been triggered by the claim of the youths pressurising those operating at the park to give them employment.

As both camps tussled for the control of the Park, elements of the Rapid Intervention Unit of the police (ESIR) stormed the park and arrestedsome ofthem before calm could return to the Park.

The police have opened investigation into the matter.

Speaking to reporters about the issue, the rivers' President, Robert Ayuk Bansua, said some 10 boys, of Bafaw extraction ,invaded the park insisting that, as sons of the soil, they must be given employment.

Bansua maintained that the boys entered the Park’s Secretariat and ransacked things belonging to the drivers.

He told reporters that he was not at the scene but the Secretary of the Drivers Union informed him of the development at the Park and he, in turn, informed the police that some unidentified persons had invaded the Park.

Ayuk Bansua said, in the course of the brawl, over FCFA 200,000 belonging to the drivers and mobile phones were missing.

One of the boys accused of invading the Park, Adolphe Masango, told reporters that they have an authrorisation from the Government Delegate to follow-up the activities of the Meme Road Transport Workers Union.

Masango said the document, duly signed, empowers them to follow-up activities of the various Parks in Kumba. He said they were out to check the illegal activities at the Park. To him, their concern is to see to the security of passengers and that prescribed norms are respected by drivers.

He averred that three of them visited the Park for the exercise but he was brutalised by four persons who ended up tearing his clothes. Masango added that he was only saved, thanks to the intervention of the police. He lamented that the drivers are accusing them of harassment and theft.

On the accusations that they were a group of Bafaw boys forcefully seeking employment, Masango described the claim as amisconception. He said they are people from different tribes and nations working in Kumba and the Park.

He maintained that they had the consent of the competent authority and revealed that sometimes the 2ndAssistant Senior Divisional Officer for Meme visited the said Park at night to appraise its functioning.