By Joe Dinga Pefok & Eugene Che
The imprisoned former Government Delegate to the Douala Urban Council, Edouard Etonde Ekoto (also former Board Chairman of PAD), who was on October 17 admitted at the Douala Referral Hospital, on November 5 returned to the New Bell Prison.
Sources say though Etonde`s health has improved, he has not fully recovered. It is said that the hospital authorities were compelled by pressure, intimidation and blackmail from some quarters to discharge him from the hospital.
Whatever the case, Etonde returned to New Bell Prison, where he met his new neighbour, Pierre Roger Lambo Sandjo, alias Lapiro de Mbanga, coming on transfer from the Nkongsamba Prison. Meanwhile, Etonde whose appeal case once more came up on November 6 at the Littoral Appeal Court could not make it to the court.
His lawyers told the judge that he was still sick. Laquintinie Hospital authorities confirmed that Ekoto had been suffering from chronic rheumatism. Doctors had earlier expressed fears that he could suffer paralysis if his health situation worsened. Ekoto was slammed a 15-year jail term on December 13, 2007, after he was convicted of embezzling up to FCFA 900 million during his tenure at the Douala Ports Authority.
The retired colonel is one of five top government officials recently jailed for embezzlement related charges.
Municipal Police To Resume Operation Soon
On November 7, the Government Delegate to the Douala City Council, Fritz Ntone Ntone, disclosed at a meeting with members of the municipal police [metropolis] which the Wouri SDO, Bernard Okalia Bilai, had banned, that they would resume work soon.
Though Ntone Ntone did not say precisely when the Metropolis would resume operation, he, however, warned petty traders who have set up makeshifts structures at streets sides or on pedestrian tracks, to better clear them rapidly, before Metropolis bounces back into action.
The Government Delegate also said the Metropolis will this time around work in close collaboration with the regular police force. Local administrative and police authorities had become worried that the Metropolis appeared to have been wielding unbridled power. The SDO had, thus, prohibited the force from operating till further notice.
He had said the Douala City Council did not have the appropriate authorisation to operate the municipal police. He had also expressed concern that the Metropolis was getting more and more into violent confrontation with members of the public, partly because of the high-handed manner in which the force carried out its operations. The SDO had then asked the council regularise their situation.
Douala City To Get Security Cameras
The Douala City Council might soon be wired with some five security cameras. It is in this light that its Government Delegate, Dr. Fritz Ntone Ntone, on November 5, signed a FCFA-120 million convention with a private company to install the cameras at three road junctions as part of plans to modernise the city.
While many thought the cameras would be to assist the police in identifying and tracking down drivers who violate traffic regulations, Ntone Ntone says the cameras will rather be to assist the council to identify and track down commercial motorcyclists (bendskins) in particular and other vandals, who destroy flowers and other installations at road junctions.
And so while busy road junctions "Rond Point" Deido will have none of these security cameras, the far less busy road junction at "Marché de Fleurs" that links Bonapriso and Bonanjo, will be in the eye of a camera.
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