Cameroon’s Minister of Territorial Administration (MINAT), Paul Atanga Nji, Southwest Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai, and several senior officials have been taken to court over allegations of complicity in the illegal seizure of ancestral land in Ewonda village, Buea.
The case, filed at the Southwest Region Administrative Court, received its first hearing on Wednesday, January 14.
Represented by Barrister Nyonbadmia Evine of Shalom Legal Consultants, 18 natives of Ewonda are seeking an urgent suspension of Prefectoral Order No. 701/PO/0.37/C90/JAP, signed by Fako Senior Divisional Officer Viang Mekala. The order established a commission to resolve a purported boundary dispute between Ewonda, Lower Ewonda, Bokwani, Bonduma, and Buea Town.
The plaintiffs argue the order is illegitimate, stating they have no boundary issues with neighbouring villages. Instead, they contend the commission is a pretext to legitimise the dispossession of their ancestral land in favour of Lower Ewonda—a village they say was only created in 2021 to grab land.
Court documents assert the plaintiffs have owned and worked the land “from time immemorial,” with homes, farms, and other developments on the parcels. They allege a coordinated effort by the officials, along with Lower Ewonda Chief Tonga Tobias Vefonge and his brother Paul Molua Tonga, to “disinherit, dispossess and grab” their property.
This legal action follows a previous injunction from the Buea Court of First Instance, which ordered a halt to all development work by Lower Ewonda representatives—an order the plaintiffs say has been repeatedly ignored. They also report the use of military and police to block access to their land.
Citing “irreparable harm,” the applicants have petitioned for an urgent stay of execution to suspend the boundary commission’s work pending a full trial. Their case rests on constitutional property rights, protections for customary land tenure, and alleged procedural violations in the commission’s establishment.
