Victoria Floods: The Ordeal of a Poor & Abandoned Petroleum City

For the past three days now, the city of Victoria, Fako County of the Southern Zone of Ambazonia, has been hit by floods and land slides due to continuous heavy rainfall. So far, about 6 Ambazonians are reportedly dead and 10 more wounded, while hundreds have been rendered homeless. The floods is a product of poor town planning by municipal authorities and the colonial regime of La Republique du Cameroon (LRC), leading to haphazard construction of homes, even in dangerous swamps and canals.

Interestingly, the colonial government of LRC claiming ownership over Ambazonia has ignored the people of the city in this trying times and not even a single word of condolence has been offered to the bereaved families. The Acting President of the Interim Government of Ambazonia, Dr. Sako Samuel, has however swiftly reacted by sympathising with the people of Victoria and the victims of the natural disaster. He has also instructed the Department of Health and Social Services to reach out to the affected citizens and offered them the necessary assistance required.

Victoria, otherwise referred to as Limbe by the colonial regime of LRC Cameroun, is a sea side touristic town in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. It attracts thousands of tourists and visitors yearly due to it beautiful beaches and volcanic rocks of Bakingili generated from the eruption of Mount Fako in past years.

It hosts the Head Office of the second employer of labour in the Cameroons, Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC). It is also a Port City, with the only natural undeveloped deep Sea Port in the Cameroons.

It is interesting and paradoxical to note that, Victoria is undoubtedly the poorest petroleum city in the world. It is host to many offshore Oil drilling installations and the only National Oil Refinery Corporation (SONARA) that serves the Cameroons and some of her Central African neighbours.

The city, like any other part of Ambazonia, has been raped economically for the 57 years of LRC’s colonial activities in Ambazonia. All taxes emanating from the oil and plantation installations have been paid to the colonial economic capital of Douala and not to the city’s local government. Chinese fishing vessels have repeatedly comb the waters of Victoria, in illegal and indiscriminate fishing expeditions.

In the midst of this economic rape, the so called elites and chiefs of the villages that make up Victoria have been accomplices. They have remained eloquently silent over this continuously economic injustice and exploitation, having benefited the crumbs and bribes they have often received from the colonial government at the expense of the indigenous people of Victoria and Ambazonia as a whole.

It is therefore not surprising that the colonial government has remained silent and given a blind eye to the floods and landslides in parts of the city, that have claimed the lives of at least 6 Ambazonians, with more than 10 wounded.

Like the Acting President of Ambazonia said during his condolence and solidarity message to the victims and people of Victoria, the colonial government of Yaounde only loves what Victoria and by extension Ambazonia has, but they don’t love the people. That’s why they can afford to ignore the city’s planning and development over these years, and have given a deaf ear to its flood victims. After all, they are more concern with the massacre of other Ambazonians in other to reclaim their entire colony that has gone loose and threatening to be free, so that they can continue with the economic rape and exploitation.

Thanks be to GOD, Ambazonia has risen to fall no more. Victoria shall be resuscitated to take its place as a deserved Port City, a touristic town and a beautiful Petroleum city. The citizens of Victoria should be happy that their current ordeal is a transitional period in the tattered life of the city into a city of national and international administration.

There is no gain without pain. The city of Victoria and its people, and the entire people of Ambazonia are presently going through the labour pains of a new gain, a new Victoria and a new nation, Ambazonia – a land flowing with Milk and Honey.

James Agbor
BaretaNews