The Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa has urged authorities to bring to justice those perpetrating violence in Nwa Subdivision in Donga Mantung Division and Bum in Boyo Division all in the crisis-hit North West region.
The frontline group made the plea in a detail report following research and analyzes done on Fulani problem in the region, with particular reference to the recent violence in Nwa Subdivision.
The said communal violence in the two localities according to the right group has seen many lives lost and much property destroyed, as well as displacement of the natives.
The report delves into the Fulani conflict with native settlers prior to the outbreak of the Anglophone Crisis with findings indicating that the problem revolves around land rights and farmer-grazier conflict as well as the contribution of the ongoing Anglophone crisis in the recent violence.
The right NGO in the report examines attacks perpetrated against the Fulani by armed separatist fighters, describing how such attacks instilled a spirit of revenge in the Fulani on one hand, and the complicity of the government of Cameroon in the Fulani problem on the other hand and discusses the government’s alleged use of the Fulani against the separatists and how such exploitation has resulted in fatalities in the region with civilians being the main victims.
The CHRDA report holds that the government and the separatist fighters alike share responsibility for the causes of the immediate course of the Fulani conflict in the North West Region.
The report concludes that the violence in Nwa against the native settlers is an outburst of a long-standing conflict between the native communities and the Fulani communities revolving around farmland and grazing land, adding, that the Anglophone Crisis has served to precipitate its current course, through both the government’s negligence and the separatists’ hostilities against the Fulani.
It revealed that in less than two months of the ongoing attacks, about 18 villages in Nwa have been raided and 17 unarmed civilians killed. Houses have been burnt, property looted and civilians displaced.
It recommended that stakeholders (the government, Fulani, and separatist fighters) on the steps needed to urgently resolve the problem to avoid a spillover of violence from the already-embroiled communities into other regions.
“In Boyo Division, and many other Divisions, very wealthy Mbororos such as Alhadji Baba Dan Pullo, one of the richest billionaires in Cameroon, forcefully occupied native land for his tea plantations and grazing land, thereby chasing the natives out of their ancestral land. The Mbororos have also been committing other atrocities against the natives, such as murder, theft, torture, and rape of women, among others. (Well-known cases of such atrocities have been recorded in areas such as Mbingo in Boyo Division, Bum, Ndawara, Ndop, Jakiri, Kumbo and Babanki.) When the natives report such cases to the authorities, the Mbororos will either offer a cow to the authorities or bribe them off with money, and the case ends there,” revealed the report.
The NGO said this farmer-grazier conflict, has made natives to developed hatred for the Mbororos and they have always lived at loggerheads with one another in the farming settlements of the Grassfields communities.
By Doh Bertrand Nua
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