The Senior Divisional Officer, SDO for Fako, Viang Mekala, has in a dispatch to various Divisional Officers, DOs in Fako, instructed them to mandate all 1st 2nd and 3rd-Class traditional rulers in Fako to be “effectively present” at the grandstands to celebrate the 59th edition of Cameroon’s national day, celebrated every year on 20th May.
In his missive, the SDO says “the unjustified absence of any traditional ruler will immediately be subjected to a request for explanation and a disciplinary file be sent to hierarchy”, he said.
Such a request for traditional rulers in Fako to run around and play to the gallery and please local administrators is not new.
The action of the SDO for Fako which to many seems like total disregard and disrespect for traditional rulers comes after that of the Governor of the Southwest region, Bernard Okalia Bilai, who at the height of the Anglophone Crisis, instructed traditional rulers to make signboards which they were to hold and march on 20th May, followed by locals from their villages.
Years after Okalia’s infamous order which was met with condemnation, the new SDO for Fako has again railed in Okalia’s tongue, instructing traditional rulers in a manner only akin to school administrators instructing pupils and students to show up for National Day or face disciplinary actions.
It remains to be seen whether Fako Chiefs will bow to the SDO’s orders through the DOs or stand their ground and request the administration to put some respect to the institutions the Chiefs represent.
