Rumours ‘Arrest’ Buea Chiefs’ Conference President

By Macdonald Ayang Okumb

     Rumours circulated for most of last week in Buea that the President of the Buea Chiefs’ Conference and traditional ruler of Wokaka, a small village near Muea in Buea, His Royal Majesty Chief Johnson Njoke Njombe had been arrested and detained.

Chief Njombe (Picture, courtesy cameroonjournal)

     Going by the information that circulated, Chief Njombe has been ‘arrested’ at the behest of a CONAC Mission that was in the South West Region the week before to investigate what has now been known as the Fako land-grabbing saga. By same information, Njombe had unjustifiably sold huge portions of land ceded to his and a neigbouring village.

     The CONAC mission had met with all the chiefs within Fako division, administrative officials as well as other stakeholders involved in land management in the division to investigate into the way land surrendered to villages by the Cameroon development corporation, CDC, had been managed between the period 2012 and 2015.

     When we met Chief Njombe last Tuesday during the launching ceremony of reorganisation activities for the Fako III section of the CPDM, the former secretary general of the Fako chiefs’ conference rather expressed surprise. “Arrest? That’s what people have been calling me ask. What have I done to be arrested?” Chief Njombe, who was putting on a hat adorned with CPDM colours, wondered.

     Within minutes of our chat, many other persons, including some of his royal colleagues, came around with the alleged arrest constituting the subject matter.

While some think that information about Chief Njombe’s arrest, was just a smear campaign cooked up to sabotage him, others strongly hold that there can't be smoke with out fire.