Editorial:

Fako Land crisis:

Why the suspicious silence by Musonge & co.?

Fako land isn’t no-man’s land. But provocatively, that is the perception some government officials in the division who dream of being untouchables flaunt. They grab community land with insulting impunity. They are ready to employ any means; hook or crook, including silencing the media, to expropriate land offered to the community by the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) for their personal interest.

They do so with the connivance of some local traditional chiefs who as “auxiliaries of the administration” are too frightened to fight for their birth rights. They are wrong and must be accountable for their conduct.

Their Pandora’s Box was opened in public by two patriotic Cameroonians, Barrister Ikome Ngongi and whistleblower, Christopher Tambe Tiku in a CRTV Buea slot - Press Club. That programme has surprisingly been suspended sine die.

   

The surprise is that this arrogance, egotism, bluffing and show of “power” by diminutive gods who want to be God, is not being done in some remote locality without political leaders. The criminal exploitation is being committed in the very vicinity where former prime minister, Peter Mafany Musonge, currently CPDM senate chief whip who is reputed for his transparency and integrity hails from. He has President Biya’s ears. Other Fako political heavy weights include national assembly vice president, Hon. Monjowa Emilia Lifaka, former University of Buea vice chancellor and CPDM political bureau member, Dorothy Njeuma and the people’s senator, Daniel Matute. What are they saying?

 The very grave allegations have not been made just by any Tom, Dick or Harry on the street. They have been made by very articulate personalities who did not hesitate to name the massive land-grabbers serving in the ministry of territorial administration and decentralisation and those in the ministry of land tenure who issued land titles for the controversial plots. Other “sons of the soil” said to be in collusion with the administrators work at the presidency.

The mafia network is said to be so connected that petitions and mails against the cheats to the authorities in Yaounde are blocked. It took Tambe and Ngongi determined commitment and sacrifice for the interest of the common good, to have audience with the prime minister and on CRTV to expose the misdeeds before the cat was let out of the bag. The gang should be minded by the adage that “nothing is hidden under the sun”.

    

Lawyer Ikome Ngongi is a former legal adviser at the United Nations while Christopher Tambe Tiku is on the South West regional ELECAM board and also secretary general of the National Commission for Human Rights and Freedoms in the South West region. They could not have gone on air to make such indicting accusations without incontrovertible evidence.

They were specific in their indictment and gave examples like the case of the Fako SDO, Zang III who Tambe said has as large as one hectare of land in Ngeme village near SONARA when hundreds of villagers to whom the land was given cannot afford even half a plot.

Most of such lands snatched by civil servants are left undeveloped. The booties are merely kept for speculative purposes to later sell when the demand is high. It is just the tip of the iceberg of a land-grabbing syndicate in which one person can have some ten land titles in the prime areas of Limbe!

Fako division with all its “political bigwigs” should not be like no-man’s land where any administrator thinks he can seize the people’s land for his selfish agenda. Ironically, the theft is almost everywhere. In Tiko sub-division, Tiko airport land has been sold illegally, putting the lives of those who have built residential houses close to the runway in peril.

There are also allegations that some of the land the CDC donated to Tiko council to build the municipal chambers was sold out by unscrupulous council officials who pocketed the proceeds. It is the same peculiar case in Mutengene where land offered by the CDC to the traditional council for a football pitch, cemetery and the expansion of the fast-growing town was illegally sold by a dubious land speculator.

How many officials have confiscated land in the Government Residential Areas (GRA) in Limbe and Buea for personal use? The list is inexhaustible, the atrocities mind bogging.

There are also vey serious allegations that the journalists involved in interviewing the guests who exposed the scandal are living under threat. By including the press in their hit list, they have exposed the Biya regime to international condemnation. The suspension is an assault on freedom of the press on which democracy gyrates. It reeks of the mentality of civil servants President Biya described in his 2013 end of year speech as people who put personal interest above that of the people. Their misdeeds breed visceral disgust among patriotic and law abiding citizens which could lead to a breach of peace. They have no regards for free speech.

The Guardian Post is aware that the prime minister, Philemon Yang and the National Anti-corruption Commission (CONAC) have taken up investigations into the scandal. We congratulate the PM for putting a halt to the offer of CDC land. His services and CONAC are up to the task to sanction the culprits.

But the level of the impunity from the Fako administration shows the extent they are prepared to go. They have gagged a popular CRTV programme and nobody, including the outspoken communication minister and government’s spokesman, Issa Tchiroma Bakary who is also the chairman of CRTV has issued any official statement to explain why.

He knows how damaging such a suspension is to the image of the country and that of President Biya. We urge him to order the resumption of the programme to heal the injury inflicted on press freedom.

 We are not saying that the mafia will “pocket” the prime minister’s investigators or those from CONAC. If they are capable of stifling a CRTV programme and threatening journalists, then nothing should be taken for granted. That is why in addition to the CONAC and PM’s investigations, The Guardian Post urges Fako senators and parliamentarians to table the matter at the national assembly for their own enquiry.

  

We also advocate that the various investigators should extend their probe into all scandalous land transactions in Fako especially the lands that CDC has given out to communities. The probe should also include plots in GRA Limbe and Buea and serve as warning to any future corrupt officials who may want to grab land in Fako on the bogus belief that it is a no man’s land.