By Boris Esono Nwenfor
Five years after Cameroon’s regional assemblies began their work, the South West is still navigating the transition from centralised administration to a more devolved model of governance.
For Hon. Zacheus Bakoma Elango, president of the South West Regional Assembly, the journey has been one of learning, adaptation and gradual transformation.
The Regional Assembly began functioning in 2021 following the December 2020 elections, amid high expectations from a population that had long called for greater decentralisation. Bakoma Elango acknowledges that those expectations were accompanied by enormous challenges, particularly limited resources at the beginning.
Yet he believes the Assembly has made significant progress. “The expectations were very high, the challenges were enormous,” Hon. Zacheus Bakoma Elango told Pan African Visions in an exclusive interview. “But the Regional Assembly achieved a lot.”
The South West Regional Assembly president argues that the Assembly’s approach has been shaped by the simple principle that development should respond to the needs identified by communities themselves. “Our vision is to find local solutions to local problems,” he says.
From health to education
Some of the Assembly’s most visible interventions have been in healthcare. At the Buea Regional Hospital, the SW Regional Assembly constructed and equipped a paediatric centre after hospital authorities raised concerns about children and caregivers being forced to sleep in inadequate conditions because of a lack of accommodation.
In Kumba, where the Regional Hospital was affected by the conflict, the Assembly has embarked on several projects, including an administrative block, a dialysis centre, an emergency centre and a theatre block with private hospitalisation facilities.
The president points to similar interventions in other parts of the region, including modern child centres in Mundemba, Bangem, Tombel, Nguti and Ekondo-Titi. In Mamfe, the Assembly has supported the construction and equipping of a theatre and imaging centre, while rehabilitation and upgrading works have also been undertaken at health facilities in Tiko, Muyuka and Limbe.
For Zacheus Bakoma Elango, the objective is not simply to build infrastructure but to reduce the burden on patients who often have to travel long distances for specialised care.
The Assembly, he says, wants to reduce what he describes as “medical tourism” within the region. “If a patient needs a CT scan, why should that patient have to go to Douala or Limbe?” he asks.
The same philosophy has informed investments in education. Across the region, the Assembly has constructed pedagogic blocks, classrooms, laboratories and other facilities, while providing benches and laboratory equipment.
A new phase of the education programme is now focused on digital learning. The Assembly plans to introduce smart classrooms in two schools in each of the region’s six divisions, with each participating school expected to receive 14 digital boards and tablets for students. “We are trying to digitalise the teaching-learning process,” Hon. Zacheus Bakoma Elango says.
Development Beyond The Major Towns
Hon. Zacheus Bakoma Elango, who was re-elected to a second five-year mandate on December 16, 2025, following regional elections on November 30, 2025, is particularly keen to emphasise that the Assembly’s development strategy is not confined to Buea, Limbe and Kumba.
He says the Assembly has increasingly shifted towards rural communities, including through road rehabilitation, solar street lighting and water projects. Road works have included the Mbonge, Boa-Balondo road and sections of the Mundemba-Toko corridor, while other projects have been undertaken or contracted in different divisions.
Solar streetlights have also been installed in communities across the region, which Elango says have improved night-time visibility and contributed to residents’ sense of security.
Water remains another priority. The South West Regional Assembly has embarked on the construction of solar and manual boreholes in several communities, responding to what Elango describes as a basic need shared by both rural and urban populations.
The underlying philosophy, he says, is bottom-up development. “We don’t impose projects on the population,” he says. “It is what the population indicates to us that it needs.”
The Unfinished Business of Decentralisation
But five years into the experiment, decentralisation remains contested. Some critics argue that regional assemblies have yet to exercise sufficient autonomy to deliver the transformation promised by decentralisation.
Elango rejects the idea that the process should be judged as though the Assembly were a replacement for central government. He points instead to Cameroon’s legal framework, which provides regional and local authorities with defined areas of competence and financial and administrative autonomy.
“The Regional Assembly has not come to replace the state,” he says, insisting that expectations must be measured against the powers devolved to the Assembly. Agriculture, for example, remains outside the Assembly’s direct area of competence, while higher education is also primarily a responsibility of the state.
The Assembly’s mandate, he explains, includes areas such as regional hospitals, secondary education and certain regional infrastructure interventions. For the Regional Assembly president, that boundary is essential to assessing what decentralisation has achieved.
“We have our areas of competence,” he says. “People should know where we can intervene and where we cannot intervene.”
He also rejects the idea of rivalry between regional assemblies and councils. The two levels of decentralised government, he says, have distinct responsibilities and should work together rather than compete.
A Region Emerging From Conflict
The question of development in the South West cannot be separated from the security crisis that has affected the region for years. Zacheus Bakoma Elango acknowledges that when the Assembly began work in 2021, the security situation was considerably more difficult.
He now describes the situation as having “tremendously improved”, although he recognises that security incidents still occur. One of the clearest signs of change is the ability of people to travel between communities that were previously difficult to access.
He also credits local populations with increasingly taking ownership of their security and development. “The population, I want to commend them, they are taking their destiny into their hands,” he says.
Elango points to the South West Peace and Development Forum as one of the initiatives that has contributed to dialogue and reintegration efforts. He says the Assembly hopes the gradual improvement in security will eventually allow communities to return fully to normal economic and social life.
Calling On The Diaspora
Another central element of Hon. Zacheus Bakoma Elango’s development vision is the Cameroonian diaspora. He wants those living abroad to move beyond criticism and become active partners in development.
He recalls a 2022 visit to Atlanta, Georgia, where a delegation from the South West Regional Assembly met Cameroonians and partners. The engagement resulted in donations of medical equipment, including two 40-foot containers from Make Share International and another container donated by a Cameroonian based in the United States.
Such initiatives, according to the president, demonstrate the potential of diaspora networks. He argues that Cameroonians abroad possess skills, financial resources and international connections that can be mobilised for development projects back home.
The Assembly, he says, is open to international decentralised cooperation and partnerships capable of bringing resources and expertise into the region. “Our doors are open,” he says.
A Second Mandate Shaped By Lessons
Elango describes the first mandate as a learning process. The Assembly, he says, began without an established institutional template and had to develop its systems while simultaneously responding to enormous expectations.
The second mandate, therefore, is intended to build on those lessons. One of the most important projects is the construction of a permanent headquarters for the Regional Assembly. The assembly launched a project to construct a new 8 billion CFA franc ultramodern headquarters in Buea near the Buea Central Prison, funded by FEICOM and expected to finish around 2032.
In education and healthcare, the Assembly intends to deepen interventions already under way, particularly digital classrooms and specialised medical facilities. The dialysis centre in Kumba is part of that strategy, designed to reduce pressure on existing facilities and spare patients from travelling long distances for treatment.
But Elango also acknowledges the limits imposed by available resources. The Assembly cannot respond to every development need simultaneously, he says. Its strategy is therefore to prioritise, consult communities and implement projects progressively. “We will move mountains”
As he looks ahead, Elango returns repeatedly to the relationship between the Assembly and the people it serves. He credits communities for supporting projects, particularly in rural areas, and argues that development infrastructure can only succeed when residents protect and use it.
For the next four years, three months of the current mandate, he wants that relationship to continue. The message is ultimately captured in the two principles he identifies as the foundation of his leadership.
The Assembly’s mission, according to the president, is to improve the living conditions of the population, while its vision is to find local solutions to local problems. Elango says those principles provide the framework for a South West that is still emerging from crisis, still learning the meaning of decentralisation and still trying to translate regional autonomy into tangible improvements in everyday life.
“We will move mountains,” he says, provided the South West Regional Assembly, communities and diaspora continue to work together.
*Watch out for full interview in November edition of Pan African Visions Magazine