After Njaah, Ngu Victor Opens Another Solar Powered Cold Store in Njah-Etu, Targets Zang Tabi as Next

After Njaah, Ngu Victor Opens Another Solar Powered Cold Store in Njah-Etu, Targets Zang Tabi as Next

Some Meta sons and daughters have for a while now been standing out different as those not only feeling the plights of the commoners but actually taking bold steps to address such by using their personal meagre resources to provide solutions to some of the people's problems. Most of them are not politicians and so their charitable works have no earmarked political gains but just reaching out to humanity, improving on the livelihoods of their populations pleases their hearts. 

One of such sons is Ngu Victor Teche. Though based in Yaoundé, he's always in constant touch with realities back home and has been greatly concerned with challenges faced by the people of the Gutah and Taah zones of the Meta clan, one of such being inaccessibility to goods of basic necessity. Moreover, he visits home almost every time need arises.

Frozen Fish in Solar Powered Freezer

Ngu Victor Teche, Philanthropist

In tracing his take off point, he told Mbengwi Online that "I started philanthropic works back home since 2018 till now and I've been consistent in doing that because I'm actually motivated when I see people happy. The passion to help them always drives me to move on and do more but then we are inspiring others because in the long run, we might have limited resources to do more again and so others can pick up from there and help their communities or help the less privileged or help people who are in need."

On Sunday August 25th 2024, he opened a solar powered cold store in Njaah, precisely at a junction known as Sanyere, where travellers to and from Njikwa and Ngie subdivisions usually stop to have a rest before continuing their journey. It was first of its kind in the area serving hundreds of villagers from within the area and neighbouring villages, communities. 

Njah-Etu is neighbouring village to Acha Tugi. There's been no cold store here before despite the village being relatively populated. Having noticed this gap and considering that fish is a basic component in most meals especially soups, Ngu Victor took upon himself the responsibility to free the people of Njah-Etu from travelling for kilometres just to get frozen fish. 

On Sunday June 22nd 2025, a solar powered cold store was inaugurated in Njah-Etu, witnessed by religious and traditional authorities plus the beneficiary population from in and out of the village. Just like the case of the one in Njaah, attached to the cold store in Njah-Etu is a snack bar for relaxation.

While revealing his motivation, Victor said "In essence, the first factor that motivated me to open this cold store here in Njah-Etu is due to the fact that my mother comes from here. Njah-Etu is my second home. The second reason is that the people here have been appealing that there's a need to open a cold store here because they often stress a lot going right up to Sanyere to buy frozen fish and so I saw this as a relief to bring this cold store to their doorsteps. The third factor is that I'm doing this to inspire others. We don't do gestures like this because we have but rather, we are driven by passion to do these things."

Consignment of Vuvuzelas

Pastor Blessing the Cold Store

A consignment of vuvuzelas was also donated to the community to help combat insecurity. The concept had been tried in Acha-Tugi and confirmed to be effective. On Friday sept 27 2024, in celebrating his birthday, Victor visited the Presbytery General Hospital where he was born some 41 years back to make a donation of security cameras, solar lamps, vuvuzelas, buckets, moppers etc. The vuvuzelas are distributed to several households and each time there are indications of insecurity in the village like robbery, kidnap etc, every household starts blowing theirs. As such the whole place becomes, noisy either scaring the criminals away or alerting able men and youths in the village to step out and face the attackers.

Coincidentally, just barely two days after donating the items to help beef up security in Acha Tugi, two thieves were arrested in the area on Monday morning breaking Tuesday. The gang of 4 had attacked a man in the neighborhood in an attempt to seize money from him. He resisted the robbers and was well beaten, wounded. An alarm was raised by blowing the vuvuzelas and the vigilant population came out in their numbers and went after the thieves. Two were caught while two escaped.  This this inspired the donation of vuvuzelas too to the people of Njah-Etu.

Talking about others that he draws lessons from them in doing his humanitarian works, Teche said "If you look at what the Kendely's are doing, this is somebody who has come like a saviour for the Meta people. Look at all what he's been doing around because he's driven by passion to do those things. He could still say he wouldn't do those things but because when you have that passion in you to help the needy, you'll always do what's right. You'll also bear with me there are people who don't like what he's doing. There are people who just sit there to criticise what others are doing but when we think about the majority who are the beneficiaries, we don't relent our efforts in carrying out these humanitarian works. We forge ahead because the minorities are always the enemies within but then the beneficiaries are the ones we look up to to give them these relief packages"

At press time, we learnt that the people of Zang Tabi have also started clamouring for a cold store to also be established in their own village. If done, then it'll also be beneficial to neighboring Kai and Toneku villages. Teche's wish is that all start thinking of doing street lightning in Meta to keep places brighter at night and also extend the vuvuzelas to  all Meta villages which truly helps as alarm bells in cases of danger. 

Bessi Fomukong Youths Wake-up

Bessi Fomukong Youths Wake-up

History has it that in the yesteryears, Bessi Fomukong used to have a very strong youth force that spearheaded development affairs in the village from roads rehabilitation through community work during which the sides were cleared, gutters traced for runoffs and potholes filled to construction projects like their church, water reservoir (in neighbouring Wumnembit village) and their weekly market known as Kwe where the youths built local kiosks out of bamboo, sticks and planks.

The Kwe market used to pull together hundreds of buyers and sellers right from Mbengwi and beyond. Every summer holiday, the roads from Njimboh to Gyiewor, Funechoh, Mufong, Sang, from Kwe to Mbengbu, Baaminip, Tonebessi to G.R.A used to be maintained by Bessi youths, supported by their parents. Cultural week activities during third term holidays that usually ended with a disco night in the school hall used to pull attendees right from Munam, Mbengeghang, Mbengwi and other far off places. The village was known by then as Down Town because of its topography; though on a plane, to get there, one has hills to descend.

In the sporting domain, Bessi Fomukong used to have a very solid football squad that was a hard team to defeat by their opponents.   The village had one of the best football fields and handball courts in those days, very leveled and covered with grass. Tournaments used to take place in Bessi pulling close to 500 spectators.

At some point in time the membership of the Bessi Fomukong traditional council and session of P.C Bessi Fomukong was mostly made up of youths. Things were in order until the discovery of huge deposits of Kaolin, also known as china clay or in local palance, "Calabar chalk" a soft, white clay mineral used in a wide variety of applications, including ceramics, paper production, cosmetics, and medicine in the village.

Mining "Calabar Chalk" in Bessi Fomukong 

The discovery became a blessing to the villagers but on the hand also a curse; a blessing in that at least 500 persons now depend directly or indirectly on the mining of this mineral, men and women, boys and girls even children, everyone has something to do and make money in the chain of mining, transportation, marketing etc. The extraction of Kaolin from beneath the earth in Bessi has created employment to hundreds of not only youths of the village but also those from neighbouring villages and communities.

Unfortunately, the level of drug, alcohol abuse has increased in Bessi Fomukong because of this. Many miners believe that consuming strong gins and hard drugs gives them strength to work. After sales, many usually indulge into squandering the money reason why year in year out their lives still remain thesame though there are a few doing something useful like building houses, dressing well, buying new electronics and assisting their families. The level at which new houses are being constructed in Bessi is on a steady increase thanks to the mineral.

The community spirit that used to reign supreme amongst Bessi youths and villagers has disappeared. Everyone now looks more at their personal gains than community gains. After all these years of exploiting Calabar chalk in Bessi, there's been no single  project in the village jointly realised for the benefit of all with proceeds generated from the mining business. The village is still without a hall, the Kwe weekly market is in bushes, many roads leading into and out of the village are deplorable, the sporting fields are in the wild with no goal posts, water crisis still continue to plague the locals, the palace of Bessi Fomukong is made of a structure one has little or nothing to desire about.

Nowadays even when community work is announced, there's a poor turnout. Everyone now focuses only on Calabar chalk exploitation which is of course for their personal gain. It is estimated that at least a billion francs has been generated eversince the mining process stated. What if some hundreds of thousands were sacrificed by all to rehabilitate the roads leading to Bessi or to build a community hall or to plant new goal posts on the fields or to rehabilitate and put to use the abandoned structures in the Kwe market or to rehabilitate the palace or to engage in a water supply scheme to the village like digging boreholes, wells etc?

Yes, all of these are possible if and only if the exploitation process is coordinated and all involved prioritise the development of the village as benefit from the natural resource. The situation is more sickening to see that a solar electrification project of the village funded and realised through Sino-Cameroon relationship some years back is being abandoned to crumble and no one seems to care. Poles have been falling, cables rolling on the ground even across roads and everyone crosses on them with cars bikes and foot  unperturbed. The dry season will soon be around, there'll be bushfires and certainly the cables and poles will be burnt and that will be the end for the villagers to enjoy solar light. To get new poles even if it's untreated eucalyptus trees, plant them and remount the cables on them simply needs all to come together and jointly see it a a problem needing solution but since despite rolling on the ground, electricity is still flowing through the cables and reaching individual homes, everyone sees it as normal.

Other villages that haven't got such a blessing are in reality progressing more than Bessi. Certainly the day there'll no longer be calabar in Bessi, that's when many persons will come back to their senses to realise that life has to be about community first and there's no way a village will have such a mineral and there are no visible projects in the village realised for the common good of all with proceeds from it's exploitation. The people may just be lucky that because of the Anglophone Crisis the Cameroon government hasn't stepped in to control it's exploitation like done with other minerals in other regions.

By now a foreign or national company would've bought all the kaolin deposits and the locals have nothing to say or do. It's high time the Bessi Fomukong Cultural and Development Association together with the palace, traditional council, youth association and other stakeholders step in to enforce the ploughing back of profits generated from the exploitation in the development of the village without which in some years to come, the village will be under developing while individuals are enriching themselves.