Many Cameroonians and Yaounde city dwellers in particular, have expressed mistrust of the government to be the core reason why they remain adamant to adopting government’s measures geared towards curbing and limiting the rapid proliferation of the coronavirus in Cameroon.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Cameroon’s political capital, Yaounde, most residents of the said city have reacted to the existence of the coronavirus in Cameroon with mixed feelings, even though the figures are alarming.
To this effect, some averred that, there’s no such virus in Cameroon, the government is just playing politics reason why they hide certain things from the population.
“This government think they are wiser than the people who elected them. This whole thing about coronavirus in Cameroon still remains fake to me because they’re just playing politics. I don’t understand how we will be victims of the new virus yet, the government has never made public a picture of these victims or give detailed information about victims?,” Emmanuel Che said.
He added that, “the only information we get from the government is the additional number of people contaminated, death cases and those who have recovered. We don’t know where they are being treated and how.”
To this, Emmanuel stated that, if the government of Cameroon provides them with weekly food stuff and allowance, the population will appreciate and will consequently stay in their various houses.
Going by Hans Njokep, the economic condition of the country is not auspicious enough for Cameroonians to stay back home in the name of struggling to contain a man-made coronavirus that is ravaging the world today.
“When there was no virus in our country the government encouraged everybody to hustle because, all Cameroonians cannot be civil servants. Today, they are asking us to stay
home because of coronavirus. Who will feed our families if we all decide to stay home, is it the government?,” he asked.
Hans emphasized that, the coronavirus is a man-made virus that has been manufactured long ago, so, producers where simply waiting for a favourable period to spread it all over and distabilise the world’s economy and that of Cameroon in particular.
Furthermore, one of the most important slogans of government’s measures to stem the propagation of COVID-19 is, ‘wash your hands regularly with clean running water and soap.’
Yet, Yaounde inhabitants decry inadequate distribution of water, thus, question themselves on what to use to wash their hands regularly at this given era as stipulated by the state.
To this end, the population called on the Minister of Water and Energy, Gaston Eloundou Essomba, to encourage his team for something to be done.
“We inhabitants of Yaounde are in pain ever since this health crisis began. We live in the capital but we don’t have access to water to wash our hands. How do we survive without water? We beg on the Minister to do something as early as possible before we all die of coronavirus,” said some women in search of water.
Also, the women deplore the sudden price influx imposed on goods by vendors especially hand sanitisers.
According to them, if they cannot afford hand sanitisers, they should at least have water to wash their hands, but, there’s no water.
As a result of this, they went ahead to produce locally made hand sanitisers composed of spirit, water and vinegar.
Meantime, the Minister of Public Health, Manaouda Malachie, however blames the rapid spread of the coronavirus in Cameroon, on Irresponsible, uncivil and indisplined nationals who arrived Cameroon and are hiding in their families.
Nevertheless, he urged the population to be more vigilant and respected the basic hygienic rules in a bid to be safe.
By A B O
