Two challenges are confronting the people of Esu and Wum at the same time. In Esu, people are no longer going to hospital in their own homeland, for a very strange reason. In Wum, the Aghem community cannot farm because of knife wielding herdsmen lurking in the bushes.
The Voice first reported this a few months ago. Now, a well verified photograph has gone viral depicting soldiers occupying the Esu District Hospital in Wum. It has been so since August. Previous raids had left the hospital ransacked and void of vital staff and equipment.
Ask the hospital’s personnel why they fled and you would collect a rich harvest of shocking testimonies. Esu has been a theatre of the Ambazonia battles with the government troops.
The Esu Hospital is perched on high ground in the village. The people of Esu regard it as a jewel for many who depended on it for healthcare. Through their development association, ECUDA, they contributed money to extend the hospital and purchase medical equipment. Others offered manual labour to improve the hospital.
Now the local people have mostly fled. Those remaining are too scared to go to the hospital even in crisis situations. Those who are courageous to go there are too afraid of the unknown from gun totting soldiers.
One Esu elite lamented as he spoke to the voice on the issue. “This is the hospital in my village that the professional military have occupied after destroying everything that has to do with the hospital. Two workers were killed when they invaded Esu some weeks.
The story has taken an intriguing twist in the Menchum Divisional capital Wum, where well known Fulani/Hausa gangs are operating with impunity. They are taking lives, stopping women from farming, chasing men from their farm homes, setting fire to homes and persons, attacking individuals with knives or simply branding anyone as Amba and calling the military on their targets as they wish.
All of this with the tacit support of people who should rather be hunting them down or preventing such crime. Even with plenty of video and photographic evidence against the gang leaders and their members the latter are marauding the markets and streets of Wum with reckless abandon.
And despite petitions by the municipal and legislative representatives of Wum as well as the general population, the security and military authorities are yet to make any bold arrests of the individuals.
The result is deep suspicion in the minds of the Aghem natives who clearly see a discriminatory protection of the Aku and Hausas despite their atrocities.
People are asking, why is it that troops would easily swoop on the Aghems when the Fulani Hausa informants call on them? And do they not do same when glaring and unprovoked attacks are unleashed on sections of the Aghem population?
In some rare cases, some moderate Fulani people have disarmed and taken the ring leader of the Fulani gangs to the security officers accusing them of specific crimes but the suspects have always been released almost immediately.
(See photo gallery illustrating the sorry plight of Esu following previous raids.)
Meanwhile, several persons have been butchered by their unsuspecting Fulani compatriots. They include two bible translators killed in cold blood and one of their wife’s arm chopped off. The perpetrators apparently are known. But they are freely parading in Wum, threatening more people.