Keep motor-taxi off our roads!

Authorities of the Buea Regional Hospital were very hostile to the idea of researching the negative health implications of the now famous 'bendskin' mode of transportation in the town. They practically avoided and even chased away The Post Reporters from the hospital premises as though they were some kind of Ebola virus.

Yet, it is a fact that so many lives have been wasted by some of these young men transporting the not too privileged Cameroonians, who are daily condemned to commute from one place to the other through this means. Fact is, the motor-taxi phenomenon has recently been gaining popularity in Buea at a rather fast rate.

The riders in question have combined with wayward taxi drivers and other unruly motorists to make driving in the “town of Legendary Hospitality” a nightmare, to say the least.

The Post Reporters got interested in the motor-taxi issue following gory reports from other parts of the country like Douala, Yaounde and Bamenda to the effect that tens of lives are lost daily, through the recklessness of these careless riders, who seem to be governed by no known acceptable code of traffic conduct.

For example, there is said to be a dedicated ward at the Bamenda General Hospital reserved for victims of 'bendskin' accidents. The victims, meanwhile, are in their tens, if not dozens.

The motorbike business which was ostensibly tolerated and later on accepted, we were informed, to help ease transportation into inaccessible neighbourhoods and to ultimately put food on the common man’s table. Granted, it has, and still serves this purpose; but at what cost to the health and other social imperatives of the society?

Apparently eager to adopt the ‘no bike’ stance of his predecessor, the incumbent Mayor of the Buea Council, is seen to be eager to keep them off the municipal streets. But the task is either too daunting or the Mayor is just not doing enough to check the recklessness of these riding dare-devils.

True, as the number of bike riders increases in the town of Buea, apparently because of the high unemployment rate here like elsewhere, so too is the increase in crime. Cases abound of women’s handbags being snatched; of female passengers taken to dark corners and indecently assaulted, of avoidable bike accident related deaths and you can name the rest.

Security operatives and municipal authorities seem to have given up in despair. And President Biya did not make matters any better, when he virtually hailed the bendskiners as dependable “fodder” for the nation’s economic growth in his New Year address to the nation. And this, without recourse to basic safety components of bike riding like “one man-one-passenger’ or better still, a protective helmet for the riders. This explains the fact of very useful youthful lives being wasted in Cameroonian streets daily.

Take this case: Brain Ndifon told The Post... "a bike rider threatened me and took my wallet around the Buea Central Market". A sample of some opinions meet the opinion that some riders had been into stealing long before they started this trade. And that because of the porous nature of the sector, they took advantage to join the bandwagon, not for decent economic reasons but as a safer means of executing their bad habits.

Cyril Njab, a bike rider said "some bike riders are actually people who had been stealing before they joined the trade so when they don’t have enough money at the end of the day they easily resort to their bad habit of stealing." Elvis Ngong, was simply blunt. "Most of my colleagues smoke weed, so as to have courage to start the day". Perhaps this explains why most commercial bike men go 'gaga'.

One drastic change is that they no longer respect their jurisdiction as they trespass their boundaries of operation allocated by the council. By this, the peculiarity of Buea is being destroyed. Though Mayor Ekema has reportedly condemned and fought this practice in the media and other channels, there is yet to be a palpable change. Neville Acha told The Post that "...we sometimes operate in restricted areas because passengers are hard to come by and the competition is stiff". So to him, this is why positive changes cannot occur despite persistent warnings.

The public too has its own fair share of the blame. Statistics from a lady who only gave her names as Woolly and who is in charge of the surgical ward of the Mount Mary Hospital, Buea indicate that in the month of April, 2014 the hospital received six cases of motor bike accidents. She said this was higher than the five cases received in the months of February and March. She added that the accidents that come in are usually tibia, femur, and lacerations which she explained to be fractures, head trauma, and open wounds respectively.

After the hostile reception The Post got from the Buea General Hospital, we proceeded to the Solidarity Clinic, Molyko, where the authorities admitted to hardly treating cases of bike accidents. According to them, the few who came along were simply for routine wound dressing and the tetanus injection.

Alphones Liwonjo of the Southwest Regional Delegation of Transport ,he said the Delegation was out to nurture the riders ,create parks and also issue licences. He said that where the riders go wrong, the forces of law and order ought to step in and restore order.

During our investigation, one fact stood out clearly. Many of the riders are unlicensed. Statistics and other records either rare, hardly, or poorly kept. Yet, the “president” in charge of licences in the Southwest Regional Delegation for Transport, Asongwed Nafon contends that "every bike rider must have a category A licence." Another snag... Though some own such licences, they are not trained, thanks to the incredible moral turpitude with which Cameroon is lavishly blessed and by which automobile licences are invariably sold and bought off the shelf.

Despite all these, the commercial motor bike business still remains a source of livelihood the teeming numbers of unemployed youths of Cameroon. And any how one looks at it, is a veritable alternative means of moving people and goods. How it is carried out such that prudence and safety is assured for its users is what beats everyone down.

Someone joked, in the course of this investigation that the Chinese were practically dumping their litter, or why not, death, in our backyard for millions of forex. Granted! But that if in our desperation, we couldn’t strive to convert stumbling blocks to stepping stones, then, we are, at best, inadvertently, taking a ride to the nearest mortuary on a 'bendskin'.

(Journalism Students on Internship)