Bangolan palace under siege, arrests galore

There have been sweeping arrests in Bangolan village in Babessi Sub-Division, Ngoketunjia Division, and North West Region on the heels of claims and counter claims of a palace coup that has dethroned Fon Chafah Isaac XI.

Governor Adolphe Lele L’Afrique is reported to have descended to the village on the night of February 17 breaking February 18 and ordered the arrest of the “new fon”, a certain Mebepa Salim, said to be the junior brother of Fon Chafah.

Kingmakers were also said to have been bundled into security vans as gunshots are reported to have been heard in the dead of the night.

Fon Isaac Chafah XI, Secretary General of the National Council of Traditional Rulers of Cameroon is accused of destroying some traditional arte facts in the palace and refusing to perform some rites during the last cultural festival because of his recent allegiance to a Buea-based Pentecostal apostle.

The population of Bangolan contended to have witnessed a dramatic twist of events in their Fondom on Wednesday, February 10, 2016 when village kingmakers drawn from the village’s dreaded secret society, the ngumba, surprised Ngoketunjia administration, forces of law and order, and some Fons, when they performed a ritual supposedly to dethroned their Fon, Chafah Isaac XI in broad day light.

Fon Chafah is said to have been led to Christ by a popular Buea-based Apostle, causing him to switch religions – apparently from Islam to Christianity.

The onetime Secretary General and President of the North West Fons Union, NOWEFU is said to have methodically and steadily injected Christianity in the tradition of his forebears and culture which to his subjects is abominable. It is probably on the strength of these shortfalls that they had to dethrone Fon Chafah before he plunges the village into a royal calamity.

Contacted by telephone Wednesday, Fon Chafah supposedly replying from Yaoundé, where he was attending a meeting bearing on his position as Fon of Bangolan and Secretary General of the National Council of Traditional Rulers of Cameroon described as unfounded and mischievous any attempts to impute instability into his fondom.

Elements of the Rapid Intervention Unit, known by its French acronym “BIR”, are reportedly stationed in and around Bangolan to ensure that Fon Chafah’s authority is restored. The Administration is now battling it out with the village authorities to see if the decision of the people can be reversed.

Fon Chafah, a fine 4th grade magistrate finds himself battling with his one time devoted subjects and villagers over the Bangolan throne which was for well over 25 years all his, with the whole village now flooded security forces.