Illegal Settlement: New Priso in Douala developing

At last squatter residents in New Priso in the Douala II Subdivision have a reason to smile. Although the administration has on several occasions warned the people to evacuate the public land, many people continued to stream into the area. Many invested to set up homes and invested in social amenities like health, academic and religious institutions with businesses all over the area.

From a look of things, the rate at which the quarter is evolving may take longer to regain possession of the occupied land. New structures are set up every day. The recent construction of an earth road to ‘Kuwait City’ through ‘Bois des Singes’ by the Douala City Council and with the on-going supply of power to homes by the national power utility corporation, Eneo, has in some way climaxed the development of New Priso. In spite of this facelift, almost impeccable to the eyes, it is impossible to imagine that the quarter which lies on the swampy shores of river Wouri with a one-time great mangrove cover and a positive repute across central Africa, is earmarked for demolition.

Government authorities has on occasions sensitised the residents not to invest in the area, but asked them evacuate the area and not to wait until evicted when it is time to use the public land. Another common reason advanced for evacuation is that the habitation borders a sensitive public structure such as the Douala International Airport.

However, many squatter residents think that though New Priso is developing rapidly with the inception of many social facilities and private investments, the future remains uncertain without any legal claims to the land. As a result of their illegal status infrastructure and services are still, nevertheless, inadequate.

With the City Council coming back months later and constructing an earth road into the area, setting up a project for the construction of a sewage dump at ‘Kuwait City’, most squatter residents see it as a tacit recognition of their stay.

They allude to “Village” and New Deido neighbourhoods in which habitation was once illegal but later received official administrative authorisation following their evolution into modern quarters.

Although these experiences seem to have lent squatter residents in New Priso the strength to resist calls to leave the area, it is worth noting that other quarters like Nkumba in Mambanda (Bonaberi) was demolished in 2014 following several decades of illegal habitation.

NGOs have, on their part, carried out sensitisation and tree planting, particularly mangrove, in order to safeguard the mangrove swamps which have been encroached upon and whose destruction continues even today.

Such an illegal activity has been sustained by a mafia game between indigenes who still lay claims to the public land as their own and thus continue to sell out plots of land and land grabbers who fell mangroves and reclaim land in order to build houses.