Awafung Julius, an activist has called for the boycott of goods from the EU. He wrote:
To BOYCOTT is an expression of a strong disapproval, by refusing to buy a product or take part in an activity. The economic partnership accord with the EU, signed by President Paul BIYA last year, on the custom-free goods importation to floods our market will soon be operational. Some economists are strongly against this agreement with one of the reasons being that it is going to kill our home or local production, increase dependency and cause health hazards. Dr. M.E. Owona Nguina on his Facebook page asks us to boycott imported frozen chicken. I think we should also boycott rice, and any other products we can individually think of.
Why we should all BOYCOTT imported goods that can be manufactured, grown or produced in Cameroon:
When we buy a bag of imported rice or consume imported frozen chicken:
• We directly empower families in those country where the goods are imported
• We give them jobs,
• We enable them to raise their living standards,
• We help them send their children to school to be trained, not only to one day build their countries, but also to come and construct our roads, constructs our stadia etc, while our children will be wandering the streets during the day and breaking homes at nights.
When we don’t consume our home-made or home-grown products:
• We disempower our Cameroonian families;
• We help increase the rate of joblessness;
• We become poorer and poorer
• We kill creativity and improvement on already existing home products;
• We groom skill-less and jobless children who become street children and robbers.
We should, henceforth, decide to consume NDOP RICE, YAGOUA RICE etc. Any restaurant, mall or shop we enter, the first question should be, “do you have any Cameroonian rice?” If the answer is “NO”, we leave and go elsewhere. This should apply for chicken and other products. If we cannot build that capability of resisting what is not imposed on us, we won’t be able to one day resist what is imposed on us; we won’t be able to fight corruption, bad governance and the abuse of human and people’s rights, electoral malpractices, etc.
Consuming local products is not only an act of loving ourselves, but it is a strong demonstration of patriotism and nation building.
Tapang Ivo Tanku has also joined the campaign, he is a Fulbright scholar with a temporal resident in the USA. He is a security analyst. He recently picked holes with the EU free trade agreement signed with Cameroon. This will see the importation of goods like chicken, rice, oil etc. Tapang has started a campaign calling for Cameroonians to boycott goods from EU. On his Facebook page, he wrote:
“..Although Cameroon has already signed the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the EU against repeated denials from its regional ECCAS member states, as well as home-based economists, we will not stop to puncture the dubious trade agreement that will harm the poorly funded and ill sustained local food industries in the West African nation.
We cannot seek to import rice, chicken, milk, and other foods from the EU, whereas we have so much to offer. It is either our government invests in the private sector, its food industries, and farmers or will NOT buy all the newly imported foods from Europe.
The trade agreement is unfair and weighs negatively on us. EU, a group of 28-member states, cannot sign a free trade agreement with Cameroon alone. This is unacceptable and illegal. We must hold our leaders to account through offline and online communications.
Cameroon is the only country from the West and Central African regions that signed such a dubious agreement, which would gradually remove duties and quotas on up to 80 percent of EU exports until 2025….” he concluded.
However, BaretaNews thinks first and foremost we must understand before getting into an economic war. How much does the local market produce? importing good means the country needs more but less is produced back home. It is important that we get these figures. That said, let the movement begin. BaretaNews will keep on bringing updates as we move ahead.
God is still saying something.
