Mr. Ndzerem Stephen Njokzeka is a veritable role mode.

 Role models are people whose examples can be emulated. To say that Stephen is a role model is to say that many a Cameroonian youth can look up to him. We live in a society where positive role models come in short supply. More and more, people are rather shocked and surprised by someone’s good deeds than by his waywardness. With the prevailing situation of moral decadence and bad behaviour from the elders, youths hardly have anyone to look up to. The few remaining good examples like Ndzerem Stephen need to be commended and recommended. He has proven that the real opportunity for success lies within the person not the job. As a role model he has laid a foundation for a stronger and healthier society. By all standards, he is a successful man. As Sidney Greenburg puts it: ‘A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him’. In trying to build a more healthier society, he has not given in to detractors. As a veritable role model, he has used all the bricks that has been thrown at him to build rather than destroy.

Stephen remains a man of great spirits. As a man of great spirits, he has always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Animated by the fact that life has two primary choices, that is accepting conditions as they exist, or accepting the responsibility for changing them, Mr. Ndzerem Stephen chose to change the conditions of all across the North West Region.

Enter SHUMAS

Since life’s conditions can only be changed through a systematic framework, Mr. Ndzerem Stephen as far back as 1997 decided to create the strategic Humanitarian Services, known today as SHUMAS. SHUMAS which is the brain child of Mr. Ndzerem is a nationally acclaimed NGO based in Bamenda-North West Region of Cameroon and promotes integrated sustainable rural development with the aim of improving the overall living standards of the poor disadvantaged people especially women and children. With activities that span through primary schooling, social welfare, agriculture, health care, women’s issues, forestry and organic farming, adult literacy and others, SHUMAS provide services not only in the North West region but also in the Far North and littoral regions.

SHUMAS has made an invaluable mark in the improvement of lives, poverty reduction, and empowerment of the disabled. In translating into concrete reality its founder’s vision of not asking what the government has done but what one can do to the government, SHUMAS has been supporting the government of Cameroon by working towards the MDGs especially MDG 8 which is providing access to quality education for all.

SHUMAS and Greater Accomplishments

In a bid to support government action in a sustainable way and to translate Biya’s policies of greater accomplishments into reality, SHUMAS has sponsored over 500 underprivileged children through secondary to tertiary education. The supply of potable water, improving hygiene and sanitation, providing toilets to rural schools are key activities undertaken by SHUMAS.

With assistance from AID CAMP International, a British Charity, SHUMAS has constructed over classrooms, provided tables and chairs to government primary schools around the country. The latest to date government primary school Muteff in Boyo division where three modern classrooms, tables, chairs and a modern toilet was recently handed to government as well as government practicing nursery school-Bamenda where two classroom, 40 chairs, 10 tables, a cupboard and toilets were also handed over to government.

What Taxation Should Not Do

It was Ntemfac Ofege who wrote in the early 90s that what the Cameroon government was doing was simply taxing people out of business. He was referring to a situation where tax officials get all the way out, take everything from the poor in the name of taxes. The argument then was that such taxes were too high for such businesses. The situation today is that after successfully taxing most Cameroonians out of business, tax officials in Bamenda now are resorting to taxing the untaxable - that is non-profits. It should be known of course, that non-profit does not mean non-money making. That is why the law does not permit that sector-which is today called the social economy to be taxed. The logic is that actors in the social economy perform the same social functions like government. In organized systems such sector promoters are rather compensated for doing what government finds difficulties doing.

Interestingly, SHUMAS goes beyond that. The NGO constructs classrooms and gives to government at very enclave areas gratis. For the same government, or, who ever overzealous man that should be, to turn round and intimidate such a service provider, is an aberration. Yaounde authorities would do well to call such a being to order before he destroys the North West that needs peace more than anything.