Cameroon

Rural Cameroon Suffers Isolation From Lack of Telecommunications Infrastructure

The Cameroonian government has ambitious plans for development by 2035.

Publication Date

Rural Cameroon Suffers Isolation From Lack of Telecommunications Infrastructure

Senge Raymond relies on his mobile phone to communicate in Bamenda, Cameroon, a luxury that not all citizens of the country have.

Publication Date

IBOKO, CAMEROON – “If you are just tuning in, this is Radio Akwa Ibom …” crackles the small radio of Williams Ngomo as he listens for the news. Although Ngomo is tuning in from Iboko, a village in Cameroon’s Southwest region, a lack of reliable networks in the area means he can receive news only from the neighboring Nigerian state of Akwa Ibom.

Ngomo is the chief of Kirikire, one of the 39 small villages that comprise the Ngolo tribe in the Southwest region. Although he is the traditional ruler of the village, he lives and works as a mechanic in Kumba, the region’s economic capital.

He visits his people in quiet Kirikire only occasionally. But when he does, he says he feels cut off from the rest of Cameroon.

“I can’t do without listening to the news,” he says. “That is why whenever I come to the village, I come along with my small radio. Since I can’t get Cameroon news, I settle with news from Nigeria, since that is all we can get here.”

Ngomo must sacrifice contact with outside family and friends when he is in the village, he says. His business in Kumba also suffers when he is cut off from his work-related contacts.

The development of Ngomo's tribal homeland concerns him. Within the last 20 years, the government has constructed schools and built navigable dirt roads throughout the area, he says. But still, few residents receive mobile phone signals. The select villagers who own a television or radio receive channels only from neighboring Nigeria.

“The Ngolo area has seen some developments lately,” he says. “We appreciate the government for that. But like Oliver Twist, we will still ask for more.”

If television, radio and telephone signals do not reach the Ngolo area, his people will never feel truly at home in their country, he says.

The government must include the Ngolo areas in its “Cameroon Vision 2035,” an ambitious development proposal, Ngomo says.

The strategy aims to secure Cameroon’s status as an emerging economy and stable democracy within the next generation. The Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development released a working paper of the strategy in 2009. It calls for “a fair distribution of resources between rural and urban areas, and between the various regions of the country.”

Ngomo says he hopes that this distribution occurs quickly so his community can participate in President Paul Biya’s development plans.

“For the people of Ngolo to join the development train that President Biya calls ‘an emerging Cameroon by 2035,’” Ngomo says, “they must be fully connected to the Cameroonian media and communication, without which the reality of this vision will only be a fallacy.”

Comfort Isumbu hails from Iboko but works and lives in the region’s larger city of Limbe. She visits her parents in the village occasionally but says she is unhappy about the lack of telephone service there.

“Mobile phone is a very important communication device in modern times,” she says. “But the absence of its network in my area makes life miserable and complicated.”

Isumbu’s mother nearly died last year, she says. But because of the absence of a mobile network, she had no idea.

“My poor mother in the village here fell very sick last year – to the point of death,” she says. “But there was no means to contact me, and they had no money to transport her to the nearest hospital in Mundemba, which is 45 kilometers [27 miles] away.”

Isumbu was oblivious to her mother’s suffering because her parents could not call her.

“They only got to me two days after the incident by sending somebody to Mundemba to contact me by phone,” she says. “It was terrible because I almost lost my mother due to lack of communication means.”

She would not forgive herself if her parents died in the village because they were unable to reach her, she says.

Christopher Eta does not belong to the Ngolo tribe but visited Iboko for the first time in 2013 to attend the coronation ceremony of a Ngolo chief.

When he was planning his visit, he did not realize that there would be no telephone service, he says. But while on the road to Iboko, he saw the “MTN Cameroon” status on his phone’s screen disappear, giving way to a persistent “No Service” message.

“I did not know that I can stay away from my phone for one second, but I already stayed out of it for about 42 hours,” he says, looking at his watch. “I can’t believe this.”

He is addicted to his phone, he says. He owns several commercial transport vehicles, and his business requires heavy telephone communication. He predicts that he may have lost business during his time in Iboko.

“If I knew the situation beforehand, I wouldn’t have bothered to come way before time for this occasion,” he says.

Moreover, the inability to contact his family frustrates him.

“I miss my wife and children a lot,” he says. “It is so pathetic that I can’t talk to them on phone.”

The government must consider installing television and radio antennae in the area to allow the Ngolo people to contact people in other areas and to access Cameroonian media, he says.

Magdalene Fontem, the telecommunication supervisor at the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in its regional office in Bamenda, the capital of the Northwest region, says that each of Cameroon’s 10 regions has a receptive antenna that receives radio and television signals and distributes them to its villages.

But signals can travel only as far as the receptor can send them, she says. The Ngolo tribal areas may be too far away from the Southwest region’s main distributor in Buea, the region’s capital.

The hilly and forested topography of the Ngolo areas may also deter signals, she says. Problems of topography and geography have hampered the government’s efforts to distribute signals, but the ministry is working to ensure that all towns and villages are connected.

Although all regions in Cameroon have antennae, Fontem says the government has tentative plans to build subantennae in strategic rural locations. But she does not know when the government will do so.

As for mobile phone signals, she says that private mobile companies decide where to invest their resources. Because there is no electricity in remote villages, it is more expensive for these companies to rely on generators, she says.

Representatives from the Bamenda offices of MTN Cameroon and Orange Cameroon, two of the country’s main telecommunications providers, said that only the companies’ main offices in Douala, the capital of the Littoral region, could comment on plans to expand. Representatives from the companies’ headquarters in Douala said that they did not grant phone interviews.

Ngomo says he remains hopeful that his people in Kirikire will soon feel connected to the rest of the country.

“We know that very soon we will be connected,” he says. “We are praying it comes soon.”