Picking Up The Pieces

Cameroon, like the rest of the world, might not have stopped counting the dead from the Coronavirus pandemic, but the country in 2021 continued with major strides to provide infrastructure and meet the daily needs of the population.  Efforts to tackle key requests by the population towards better self-governance have continued to occupy centre stage in the country with the decentralisation process taking another step forward. The election of regional councillors in 2020 opened the way for the putting in place of officials to ensure that grassroots governance can become operational across Cameroon. Although regional officials have largely spent the year setting up structures, many are hopeful that the next year would see them take off with speed and give the population reason to have more faith in State institutions. Working in such a direction will certainly permit a better appreciation of the resolve by President Paul Biya to allow the people play a greater part in managing their own affairs. A cry which has exposed the importance of drumming up values like living together in a country that has once prided itself as the peace haven. With the harmony disrupted since 2016 when the South West and North West regions started witnessing some upheavals, the country has never been in such a bad posture in reconciling its sons and daughters from across the spectrum.     
However, there has been a clear sign of some calm with an increasing number of children getting back to classrooms in both regions. While many hope to see the trend continue, the carnage and mayhem lived by the population within the past five years has demonstrated to all and sundry that there are better ways of problem-solving than taking human life. Even more, the art of nation-building remains a continuous construct which no individual must afford to take for granted.     
 People being distant from each other might not have been solely by to the restive situation in the North West and South West, but also by the global Coronavirus or Covid-19 health pandemic. Cameroon has progressively recovered from the pandemic thanks to traditional medicine and eventually the introduction of various vaccines in all health centres in the country. Of course, the lockdown that the pandemic imposed in 2020 started producing its consequences in 2021especially at the economic level. sIn his position as President of the Conference of Heads of State of the Central African Economic and Monetary Comm...