Inhabitants of Buea rely on rains for water

Inhabitants of Bomaka, Wonya-Mavio, Upper and Lower Muea in Buea Subdivision, Southwest Region have gone for weeks without potable water following the destruction of a water catchment that supplies these villages.

Institutions, commercial premises and households are yearning for the restoration of this basic necessity. “We are really suffering in Bomaka because of this water problem. How can a neighbourhood like Bomaka go for over one week without water?” Doris Elame, a Bomaka resident bemoaned.

According to Augustine Ekwa; “We, residents of Muea, have not experienced the kind of water crisis we have had for the past one week. We are appealing to the Mayor and the Chiefs to look into this water problem before all of us die of thirst,” Ekwa said.

“If not for rain water that we are using now to cook and even drink, I don’t know what would have become of the inhabitants of Bomaka. It is really disheartening think of the fact that people could stay for more than a week without water, yet nobody is saying anything, and water is supposed to be life,” Anastasia Moussaka, a University of Buea student resident in Bomaka told The Post.

The water catchment, according to reports, was allegedly vandalised by some youths working on the new layout recently ceded to the Molyko community by the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC.

The destruction of the water catchment, The Post learnt, was ordered by Molyko Chief, HRH Mathias Esuka Etonge. When this reporter met the Chief in his Molyko Palace on July 9, he declined commenting on the issue because, to him, it was a non-event. Chief Esuka said he could only comment on the issue in court.

When urged to clear the air about rumours behind the destruction, the Chief said: “What I ordered to be destroyed was not a water catchment as people claim, but a fishpond. I bulldozed the area some months back and there was nothing like that. This fishpond was built recently and even on a Sunday. When my subjects started planting pillars in the new layout, they discovered that somebody had encroached on the communal land and had started operating a fishpond.

They accused me of having sold their land. So, to make peace with them and prove my innocence, I asked them to go ahead and destroy the fishpond. I think I am the Chief of Molyko and I am there for my subjects, if such a thing was to be carried out on this land that has been ceded to the Molyko community, I should be consulted,” Chief Esuka stated.

The Chief claims that what was destroyed was a catchment that supplies water to the people of Muea, Bomaka and Wonya-Mavio. According to him, the water catchments of these areas are found towards the Buea Central Market.

Meantime, the Chief of Upper Muea, HRH David Molinge Ikome, said he has ordered his subjects to stop drinking from that source. According to him, the act carried out at the water catchment could have resulted in the death of hundreds of people in Buea, if the boys sent by the Molyko Chief had decided to use poison to kill what they claimed were fish in a pond.

Chief Molinge said the destroyed water catchment was in that area long before the Chief of Molyko himself was born and it was used by the CDC as one of its water sources before the population of Bomaka, Wonya-Mavio, Upper and Lower Muea, through the permission of the CDC, decided to source water from there.

Chief Molinge said he took his personal initiative and resources and constructed a fence round the catchment, protecting the water source from animals and individuals and his subjects and those of neighbouring villages depend on it for water.

Chief Molinge said there is a law in Cameroon forbidding the construction of houses, 25 metres close to a water catchment or source. So, by planting pillars on the water catchment and vandalising it, Chief Molinge feels that the culprits would be called to order.