By Ndefru Melanie
In the early hours of April 12, 2023, eyewitness recounted that a police van hit a bike rider and his passenger, a woman. Onlookers at the time of the accident tried rushing the injured woman to the Bamenda Regional Hospital, while the bike rider died on the spot.
The incident happened at fish pond hill Bamenda, few metres away from the market. The atmosphere gradually became tensed because according to bike riders who took to the streets the police van hit these victims and took off. Some bike riders explained that, they expected the driver of the police van to have remorse.
The atmosphere became more tensed when bike riders in Bamenda paraded with the corpse of the bike rider within town and proceeded upstation to seek audience with the Governor of the Northwest Region.
The lady involved was rushed to the hospital but later died in the afternoon after calm had return in the city. Calm only returned after the Senior Divisional Officer for Mezam, Simon Emile Moh and the Bamenda City Mayor, Paul Achobong had addressed the bike riders.
Many joined the protest along the way, as bike riders in Bamenda recounted that on several occasions either the military or police vans had caused them to flee the highway whenever they are passing on top speed. The SDO was very attentive and asked them to recount what happened on March 12th morning.
“I have been keen and I have listened to what you people have said. But I urge you all to remain calm, peaceful whenever such situation arise. We will discuss this problem within administration in order to know what measures to take, meantime we urge you to retire”, SDO Mezam.
Mezam SDO made efforts to broker deace, invites representatives of commercial bikers to a meeting. He assured them that investigations would be opened to get to the root of the matter and also invited the riders to designate five persons to have a talk with him on the days ahead.
Some bike riders were not satisfied with the resolutions taken by the SDO as measures will not be taken to punish defaulters. Yet they appreciated that a meeting will be an opportunity to table their complaints and call on the authorities to tell soldiers to stop targeting them.