In effect, President Paul Biya on Thursday May 19, 2011, gave instructions through the Delegate General at the Presidency in charge of National Security (DGSN), Martin Mbarga Nguele, that the issuance of national identity cards be entirely for in the next three months. The decision therefore scraps the FCFA 2,800 requirement for the same card stipulated in an earlier text signed by the Head of State. In addition to the Thursday publication by the police boss, there will be the “reopening of the hitherto closed identification posts and eventually the creation of new identification posts as need arises.” Moreover, the DGSN also confirmed the intensification of the door-to-door campaign for the distribution of national identity cards awaiting collection.
All these measures taken by the Head of State do not only encourage Cameroonians to have their legal papers, but they are equally incentives that demonstrate a political willingness to foster the democratisation process in the country. Until now, some political barons were organising curious fund raising activities that often generated millions of FCFA for the issuance of the national identity cards to their followers. Such campaign strategies must now be abandoned.
By facilitating the process, the Head of State is making an open call for members of the public to take active part in the management of state affairs. This is because the national identity card remains an indispensable requirement for voters to get registered and eventually vote, thereby taking part in any defining moment in the historical evolution of Cameroon through the ballot box.
The measure equally offers an opportunity for those who kept dodging the national identity card in the name of poverty to go for one now, even if it is for their personal convenience. It is mind-boggling understanding how many Cameroonians go about their daily activities without such a vital document as the national identity card.
True to type, people may now pose the problem of the lack of money to buy stamps for a birth certificate. That is another incomprehensible situation whereby people grow up to adulthood without a birth certificate, which in practice cost almost nothing when requested within the first month of birth. Needless saying no one can needs to scrap the purchase of communal stamp or take the responsibility to buy one for those who refuse to get it themselves.
Whatever the arguments, therefore, the liberalisation of the procedure for procuring the national identity card must be seen as a clarion call for those who have maintained unexplained apathy so far to shun such behaviour and be counted among Cameroonians who made their votes count in the democratisation process in the country.
