Council head explains how he partitioned land to administrators

Fako SDO, Zang III, has ordered the Gendarmerie to probe the former Traditional Council Head for Mokundange, a village in the Limbe II Sub-Division, following the alleged sale or misappropriation of some nine hectares of land that were ceded to the village by the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, years back.

A protracted chieftaincy squabble that lasted well over 10 years had meant Mokundange being governed, on an interim basis, by a traditional council. One Peter Ewanga, aka The Teacher, had been chosen to head the Council. He is said to have wielded powers commensurate with those of a Chief.

Mokundange is the village that hosts big enterprises such as the National Oil Refining Company, SONARA, and Shipyard. The coming of the Shipyard project in 2003 and the expansion of SONARA meant that the population was going to rise dramatically, hence, the request for more land for settlement.

And this is how the Government, through the CDC, came about ceding some 17 hectares of land to the village.

But during a crisis meeting held at Mokundange recently, the SDO in a bid to find solutions to some inter-village boundary claims and counter claims Zang discovered that the “The Teacher” had either sold off or misappropriated some 5.5 hectares and some other 3.5 hectares out of the total of 17.

“The Teacher” accepted that he shared part of the land in question to “administrators”, but fell short of naming them. Apparently infuriated by his claim Zang ordered the gendarmes to have “The teacher” come clear on who exactly got any piece of the ceded land.

Immediately after the meeting that held at the Limbe II Council deliberating chambers, Zang, moved to the parcel land in dispute where he was informed by officials from the Lands and Surveys Department that the Traditional Council head had, initially asked for eight hectares of the 17 to “share to the villagers of Mokundange”.

"Then he, again, wrote to the administration asking for an extra 3.5 hectares with the claim that the initial eight hectares did not suffice… He said they needed this extra 3.5 hectares to accommodate their market, school and playground for the village".

“This 3.5 was given.” They said the balance of 5.5 hectares had to be reserved for any future need by the village.

But the Traditional Council head and his Council members grabbed the 3.5 plus the balance of 5.5 and quickly sold off or dispensed of every single bit of it even before the SDO, Zang, had had time to designate Muambo Nyalele as the new Chief of Mokundange sometime last year.

During the site visit, it was discovered that the former traditional council of Ewanga had, at least, reserved some pieces for the supposed school, market and play ground. “So, this means the new Chief has nothing,” one person said.

The SDO talked of having Ewanga incarcerated even for as long as six months until he is able to give a credible account of who has grabbed how much of the land in question.

The SDO recalled recent publications citing him and other administrators as those conspiring with traditional rulers to grab land meant for the villagers.

But The Post gathered from some of the villagers that the former DO of Limbe II, Charles Duala Fomubod, now in Meme Division, had quite some parcels of land in the said new-layout that were attributed to his name. Some hold that he might have sold off some or still owns them. The Post was however, not able to independently verify these claims.

Besides, the team met one person who was fast carrying on with construction works on his own piece of the grabbed land. When the SDO accosted him and asked how he got the land he simply replied, “I bought it from the Mwambo family.”

Botaland Crisis Laid To Rest

The SDO took firm measures, later on, to put an end to the Botaland saga that has been raging on since April 2014.

At a second meeting the SDO said it was the very last to resolve the crisis that has been raging between Chief Peter Metombe of Botaland and his subjects. The crisis had erupted following a similar 17 hectares piece of land that CDC ceded.

While a majority of the villagers have been against the Chief’s manner of sharing out parcels of the said land, the Chief had, defiantly, stood his grounds. The villagers had accused him of favouring only a handful of his cronies made up of members of his traditional council and close friends.

On Friday, Zang said he was putting an injunction on this said piece of land. He also nullified any initial sharing that the Chief must have done as well as scrap the traditional council and land management committee that the chief had put in place. This, he replaced with a new one that was formed on the spot.

He said he was going to scan through the list of the new members to make sure names of all those who, maybe, have been engineering disorder in the village won’t feature in the final 25.

He warned the Chief severely for having failed to implement the recommendations of an August, 2014, held for the same purpose of resolving the crisis. Instead, Chief Metombe and his villagers dumped the SDO’s recommendations and resorted, rather, to a stream of court battles as the way out of the situation.

But the SDO said this was not healthy for the Chief and the villagers whom he had recommended to dialogue and find a common ground of understanding. He warned that he would not hesitate to use military force to restore order at Botaland if there is any confrontation again between the Chief and his subjects. The SDO promised to set up a new Commission that shall re-share the 17 hectares of land afresh to the Botaland villagers.

The Mayor of Limbe II, Duncan Molindo and the President of the Limbe Chief’s Conference, HRH Otto Molungu, advised the Chief to treat his subjects in a fatherly manner. He said as a Chief, he must be ready to expect and accommodate those that differ with him.

Rightful Ownership Of Monkey Hill The SDO also watered down a raging disagreement between the people of Limbola and those of Batoke as to who owns Monkey Hill.

Monkey Hill is a mound of earth northwards of the SONARA refinery. It is said to be rich in rocks used for the production of cement. It is worth noting that Dangote Cement recently acquired this hill and shall, henceforth, be extracting these rocks, to feed the Douala based cement factory.

“As far as I am concerned, the Monkey Hill crisis is over. You will not keep quarreling with your neighbour because of a few francs that you have lost,” the SDO told the Limbola villagers.