Fako High Court Fines Tiko DO For Ignoring Lawyers’ Summons

/By Macdonald Ayang Okumb/

Barrister Ashu Samuel: The Man The Tiko DO Padlocked

     A Judge at the Fako High Court in Buea, Justice Otto Esseme Ngame, last Thursday awarded court cost of FCFA 150,000 to the Divisional Officer, DO, of Tiko Sub-division, Patrick Che Ngwashi for failing to enter appearance for an originating summons after being duly served.

     The case that opened that Thursday is pitting the Tiko DO, two police officers by name Alfred Nformi Wepnje (Tiko Police Commissioner) and Elvis Osong as well as the State of Cameroon (represented by the ministry of territorial administration and decentralisation) against three plaintiffs namely, Barristers Samuel Ashu Bisong, Eric Forsack Forteck and the Fako Lawyers’ Association, FAKLA represented by its president Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla.

     It all began on Monday 18 May 2015 when the DO padlocked Barristers Samuel Ashu and Eric Forsack in their Tiko chambers for more than one hour on grounds that the chambers was open during a Keep-Tiko-Clean campaign that day.

     The lawyers’ anger is that by doing so, the DO acted ultra vires and that it was not the first time he was acting as such towards Lawyers. He had once also orchestrated the detention of Late Barrister Innocent Bonu and Benjamin Enow Agbor three years ago.

     The lawyers’ attempt to cause the DO apologise for his action met with a stone wall; reason why they dragged him to court.

“We want the court to determine whether any person, group of persons or administrative officers who detains any citizen in a confined place without a warrant duly issued by a judicial officer can be said and held to have violated the human rights of that citizen...whether any person who enters the premises of a citizen without a warrant or without the authority of that citizen can be termed to have trespassed on the citizen’s property...whether any person not acting by the strength of a judicial instrument or acting under the fiscal law can legally pretend to seal the business premises of any citizen and in any case do so without drawing up a report and minutes of the exercise” Barrister Enow Agbor stated.

     The Tiko DO, who has however been sued not as DO but in his individual name, was not present at the court that Thursday, neither was any legal representative of his. And no justification was tendered to the court to that effect.

     It was then that the Judge, after being solicited by the counsels for the plaintiffs to award costs to the DO worth FCFA 20 million, that he (the Judge) finally settled for FCFA 150, 000 and then adjourned the matter to Thursday 6 August for another hearing.

     The auditorium of the Fako High court was full to capacity as more than 100 lawyers and Advocates-in-training were present to support their colleagues.

     The Lead Counsel for the Plaintiffs is Barrister Benjamin Enow Agbor (who was himself once unlawfully detained by DO Patrick Che) and will be assisted in the process by more than forty lawyers, among them, prominent names like Barristers Harmony Bobga, Ikome Ngongi, Ebah Ntoko and Gladys Mbuya who’s the Vice President of the Africa chapter of the International Federation of Women Lawyers, known by the French acronym FIDA.