As the voter registration intensification campaign launched in October by the Cpdm central committee draws to its close, the Lebialem divisional team can pride itself of having done a good job after beating their 2007 records.
As per the last evaluation meeting held last April 23 in back in the division, Lebialem I with seat in Fontem tops the chat with 24100 registered voters. The Lebialem III section with headquarters in Wabane follows with 21000. For its part, Lebialem II in Alou has already enrolled 17060 voters. This makes a total of 62.160.According to the first vice president of the voter registration intensification committee for Lebialem, Pr Ivo Leke Tambo, “we have already beaten the 2007 records. In 2007 we had about 60.000 registered voters but as at now we have already gone beyond that.” And “,we hope owing to the enthusiasm and the determination in Lebialem as well as the mobilisation we are carrying out on the field, to go up to about 90.000 registered voters,” Tambo added. The next evaluation meeting has been scheduled for June 25 back there. As it is the case in most parts of the country, so many people have not been enrolled for lack of National identity cards which are an indispensable document as far as voter registration is concerned. Added to the lack of National identity cards is the perennial problem of impassable roads in the Lebialem.
In a bid to solve the former, Tambo said “we pleaded with the delegate general for national security, Martin Mbarga Nguele to send us a mobile identification because we were having it very difficult given that to obtain the document one needs a birth certificate and a certificate of nationality.” In response, the delegate general dispatched a team of identification police operatives to Lebialem. The team which we learnt began work there last April 14 is due to continue till April 31. According to Tambo, the team is already combing the various sub divisions of Lebialem and by the close of the operation, national identity card holders would have greatly increased and that would go a long way to swell the electoral register. To the latter “if that team could stay a little longer than due, it would have helped us a great deal. Our wish is also that the Head of state extends the April 31, deadline which he fixed for the issuing of the national identity card at CFA 2.800.” It should be noted that Lebialem is not the only division wishing that this deadline be extended. The tone was set by the speaker of national assembly, Hon. Cavaye Yeguié Djibril recently while chairing a regional evaluation meeting of the voter registration campaign in the Far North region. Since then, calls for the extension have been flooding the waves of broadcast outfits as well as newspaper columns. This, keen observers of the Cameroon political scene say is proof of how much the Cameroonian people want to participate in choosing the one who would govern them for the next seven years.
To ease the mission of Elections Cameroon, Elecam, part of funds contributed by the elite we learnt is distributed to local party officials from the section right down to the cells to enable them mobilise Cpdm supporters and at times rally them on one spot or convey them to the registration posts. As at now, Elecam has confirmed haven enrolled at least 1.3 million potential voters. Added to the potential five million voters that the revision of the 2007 electoral list would produce, Cameroon could be counting over six million registered voters ahead of the October presidential poll.