BY SIMON NDIVE KALLA
Traditional rulers from the South West, Centre, East and South Regions converged on the banks of the Atlantic Ocean in Down Beach Limbe, to implore their ancestors to bring peace back to Cameroon. This was during a purification ceremony which took place on Saturday, September 7, 2019.
The purely traditional ceremony was made up of speeches from the focal point for National Peace Caravan by traditional rulers, the chairman of the National Coordinator of Peace Caravan and the representative of all the chiefs of the South West Region followed by the purification ceremony proper.
In his opening remarks, the chairman of Peace Caravan who also happens to be the Chief of Batchenga, HRH Pospere Bessala said Cameroon is sick, as the country is facing attacks from the Central African rebels in the East Region, Boko Haram in Far North and the Anglophone crisis in the two English speaking Regions, hence the decision by the traditional rulers to intervene and Sue for peace. “Blood spilled needs purification”, HRH Pospere Bassala said.
He called on Cameroonians to shun war and make peace, avoid tribalism, hate speech and work to consolidate the one and indivisibility of Cameroon.
On his part, the focal point coordinator for peace in South West Region, Chief Ndiko Fonderson Henry said over three years since the beginning of the Anglophone crisis, there has been incidents of threat, killing, kidnapping, exchanges of gunshot etc. He however prayed that the caravan of peace will yield the desire results so that their subjects can live again in peace and harmony. Chief Ndiko Fonderson congratulated the National President of Peace Caravan HRH Pospere Bassala for the laudable initiative and success recorded so far.
The president of the South West Chief’s Conference, HRM Mafany Njie Martin said it will be written in history that traditional rulers intervened to resolve the socio-political crisis in the North West and South West Regions. While regretting that people have lost their lives, properties have been destroyed, schools, hospitals and houses burnt, people displaced, Chief Mafany called on Cameroonians in the diaspora fueling the crisis to reason with them so peace should be restored in the North West and South West Regions.
At the end of the ceremony at the Manga William Avenue, the president of the Peace Caravan handed cartons of books, pens, pencils, rulers and other learning materials to the President of the South West Chief’s Conference to share to his peers to give to their subjects to begin school. Meanwhile, the Fako chiefs in return handed over a mystical pot to the chairman of the National coordinator of the Peace Caravan which they say he will have to take along with him in his tour of the country so that traditional rulers from the different Regions can add to it.