The road has stimulated bribery and corruption to incredible levels. Smugglers profit, government loses revenue and travelers voyage in agony.
The devastated national highway No 8 that runs from Kumba in Meme Division to Mamfe in Manyu Division offers smugglers and transporters a safe route to dodge taxes while sneaking in contraband goods into Cameroon, said an administrative official.
The smugglers and transporters have tied a neat corruption knot with the forces of law and order that operate along the nearly 200-km-highway.With about four check points, two at Ikiliwindi, Babensi and Konye, the forces of law and order stop trucks to take their bribes,” the official told Green Vision, “and the illicit traders pass through, even with dangerous goods.”
Goods smuggled into Cameroon from Nigeria include petrol, milk, yams and plastic products.
The infamous Kumba-Mamfe road is like a vein through which putrid blood flows. Apart from Manyu people who have reaped tremendous distress from the rundown road. Nguti people have mentally, economically and socially suffered the disfavour of fortune in an extreme degree.
The mid-way town plays a delicate balance between Kumba and Mamfe, cut off from most of modern civilization amenities-electric power stops at Mile 12 in Ikiliwindi on the Kumba side and starts again in Tinto Junction on Mamfe side; water is a luxury and farm produce end mostly on the farms and homes.
Nguti produces so much food such as cassava and plantains but most of it does not reach the main market outside the subdivision.
“Even if the cassava reaches the state of transformation into garri, the production is limited by the lack of grinding machines,” said an indigene.
According to the indigenes, government is making a fool of Nguti people and Nguti’s misfortune affects largely farmers.
“Cocoa farmers lose a lot of their crops to unscrupulous buyers who use faulty weighing scales,” said an indigene.
“From each bag of 65 kgs, a cocoa farmer can lose up to 8 kgs,” Green Vision was told.
Travelling from anywhere to Nguti is simply by chance and often a nightmarish experience.
“Travelers are always forced to sleep on benches if off-licenses whenever their vehicles break down or get stuck in mud,” the assistant Divisional Officer for Nguti, Jacob Ammukai, told The Green Vision.
“Sometimes, the owner of the off-license drives you away and removes his bench leaving you with a hard cold veranda,” said Amamukai.
Businessmen suffer in much the same way but with additional stress.
“During the rainy season, we pay up to FCFA 20.000 to Kumba on a motorcycle. Subsequently, we are forced to double the prices for our commodities much as beer, which we may sell at FCFA 1.000,” said Davran Eyeni.
Some Nguti natives say government is just not interested in developing the Kumba-Mamfe road, which has become a kind of devilish piece in an intricate political jigsaw puzzle cut out by self-serving politicians.
“Since sometime in 1986 or there-about, Nguti has seen no prosperity. Even Manyemen that is a great deal smaller than Nguti is economically and socially livelier,” said Arrey Bejong.
The Kumba-Mamfe road has been some sort of gem for political gimmicks. For the last 30 years or so, it has received unfulfilled promises of reconstruction and each promise has come and gone.
As soon as one promise is forgotten, another one is quickly cooked up to replace it.
