Fako land saga: Chief, others to testify in Botaland case

The Chief of Botaland, HRH Peter Mbella Metombe, is expected, alongside one Medical Doctor, a Police Officer and one other person, to testify before the Limbe Magistrates Court on September 5, in an ongoing case against one Jonas Metutu Ekema and six others.

Metutu and co-accused persons were charged to court after they, on June 28, allegedly confronted and beat up some five persons on a 17-hectare piece of land that the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, surrendered to the village of Botaland.

But many villagers raised objections to the manner in which their Chief, HRH Metombe, was sharing out plots on the piece of land. The villagers, thus, went to pre-empt the said persons on June 28, from felling down palm trees on the piece of land.

In the event, they are said to have beaten up some five persons reportedly contracted by the Chief to fell the palms.

Peter Ngwa Muluh, who is the fourth prosecution witness in this raging ‘land grabbing’ matter, told the court, on August 21, that the villagers who were about 50 in number came, seized their engine saws, bags and sundry items.

“They used our cutlasses to cut palm fronts which they cleaned and beat us with,” said Ngwa who is an engine-saw operator, adding that the villagers swooped on them that fateful June 28, at about 6.00pm.

They got them beaten with palm tree branches, frog-marched them down to the village square and later, at 10.00pm, the police came to their rescue and whisked them off to the police station in Limbe.

They were asked to volunteer statements at the police station which they did. Ngwa told the Court that his statement was written down by the police and he was asked to sign. He said he did not read through nor were the statements read back to him.

In all, the evidence provided by Ngwa and one other prosecution witness, on August 21, raised a lot of discrepancies and unanswered questions that only the Botaland Chief, the police officer, medical doctor who consulted the prosecution witnesses, shall be able to shed light on, when they testify on September 5.

For instance, Ngwa’s medical consultation book presented to the Court, on August 21, showed that the said doctor accorded him “five days of rest”. But his medical certificate, signed by the said doctor on the same day he consulted, showed that he had been accorded 21 days of “rest or incapacity.”

The battery of lawyers for defence in the matter is made up of Barristers Ikome Ngongi, Harmony Bobga, Blaise Berinyuy, Simon Munzu and Elvis Abumbi. Meantime, the prosecution is powered by the Limbe State Counsel, Magistrate Ndze Ewane and Barrister Henry Ngale Monono for the civil party.

The defence, during cross examination, asked to know from the two prosecution witnesses: Peter Ngwa and David Dede, who made presentations of their cases on that August 21, why the discrepancies in the days of incapacity in their “consultation” books and “medical certificates”. Ngwa told the court that his own medical certificate was only brought to him later on, after he had consulted and left the hospital.

“I told the doctor that my leg was paining and he asked me to go home,” he said. He said that some members of the Chief’s Traditional Council later brought the medical certificate to him in his house. The defence inferred that that there could have been some fraud.

The defence also sought to know who initiated the complaint to the police that later led to the arrest of Metutu and the six others. The court found it difficult to understand because the prosecution witnesses, Ngwa and Dede, told the court that they never made any complaint to the police.

Barrister Bobga said he was at a loss because the aggrieved persons concerned, by law, were those to initiate a complaint and not the Limbe Legal Department, as it appears to be.

Meantime, Ngwa and Dede told the Court that they were claiming from the accused persons the total sum of FCFA 10 million (circa FCFA 5 million claimed by each) for damages incurred since June 28. They said they lost two of their four engine saws that they had and other items.

The case was thus adjourned to September 5, when the Chief and other civil party witnesses are supposed to testify.