Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai, Tuesday, July 16, handed over the files of a decade long unresolved Limbe Paramount Chieftaincy Crisis to the new Fako SDO, Emmanuel Engamba Ledoux.
Bernard Okalia, today Governor of the Southwest Region, was in July, 2007, the then SDO of Fako when the late Paramount Chief of Limbe, HRH Chief Ferguson Manga Williams, passed away.
By tradition, the SDO was supposed to conduct consultative talks with the ruling family and proceed to designate a new successor.
10 years after, the same Okalia Bilai was in Limbe to commission a new SDO, when the Paramount Chieftaincy stool is still vacant.
The Governor admonished the new SDO to use his sense of wisdom and spirit of good judgment to hold consultative talks with the Kingmakers of the Buea and Limbe Paramount Chiefdoms so that new chiefs should be found to occupy these long vacant stools.
But from Okalia’s pronouncements, it was clear that the designation of who to succeed the late Chief Manga Williams, who died in 2007 in Limbe and the late Chief SML Endeley, who died some five years back in Buea has been a herculean task to himself and all the other SDOs who had succeeded him in Fako.
“Your Division is also known as a village where chieftaincy disputes or ascending to chieftaincy stools baffles all reasons. Potentially, everyone here is ready to mislead you and to make of you, after attaining their objectives, their scapegoat,” Okalia said.
To him, the problem of chieftaincy in Fako has been made more complex by the fact that almost everyone wants to be a chief and by this, they are always ready to come and mislead any administrator with just the wrong information.
“As a result of this confusion, the Limbe First Class Chieftaincy stool has been vacant since the death of Chief Manga Williams in 2007 and that of Buea in 2011.”
He urged the new SDO to steer clear of those who will come just to derail him.
He further urged him to do his utmost best to work towards the development of the Division and avoid being misled.
Okalia further urged Engamba to check against the threats being posed by what he called the frustrated followers or sympathizers of the outlawed SCNC movement both in Cameroon and neighbouring Nigeria.
He implored him to work closely with the people. “I will always be there to support you,” he promised.
Governor Okalia Bilai congratulated the outgoing SDO, Georges Zang III, for all he did to serve the State as SDO of Fako.
He said it was as a result of Zang’s appreciable work in Fako that the State added three more years to him to continue in service after he attained his retirement three years back.
In his welcome address, the Government Delegate to the Limbe City Council, Andrew Motanga Monjimba, called on the new SDO to demonstrate a high sense of responsibility, abnegation and impartiality in the handling of issues across Fako Division.
without bluffing, Motanga came down hard on the issue of land grabbing and land merchandise, which he said has grown to such a proportion that if not curbed, succeeding generations of Fako children shall not have where to build or farm for themselves.
“We are also very helpless in the face of unscrupulous land grabbing and wanton sale of national and State land in Fako Division.
This is a stock in trade put in place by a well-lubricated machinery.
“We need a strong hand to deal with this callous activity by mindless merchants,” Motanga said.
Motanga also listed a series of other economic demands that the Fako people will like to see their new SDO push to fruition: the protracted Limbe Deep Seaport Project that has remained just on papers for so long, the Limbe Shipyard Project still under construction, among others.
Senator Charles Mbella Moki, in his own words of advice, also admonished the new SDO to use his high sense of reasoning and make the speeches of the Government Delegate and the installation speech of the Governor his daily points of reference.
“I know that he is going to bring satisfaction to the people of Fako Division by the Grace of God,” Senator Mbella Moki said.
The Post Newspaper
