The richest woman in Cameroon, Kate Fotso, also an indigene of the Bakweri in Buea, has offered 20 million francs CFA to at a fundraising aimed to to organise the Bakweri Cultural Festival known as Mbando.
She made the donation at the Buea Paramount Chief’s Palace in Saturday, March 4, where several elite and Chiefs of Bakweri gathered to strategize on the upcoming festival.
In a speech that was widely applauded for its appeal to Bakweri men to rise up from laziness, Kate Fotso pledged 20 million, stating she was fully in support of the Mbando.
The festival is an initiative of the recently coronated Paramount Ruler of Buea, HRH Robert Esuka Mbella Endeley.
Among those who came to support the initiative was Secondary Education Minister, Nalova Lyonga, also a Bakweri native.
The Minister pledged her support for the upcoming cultural festival, which will revive a lost tradition of the Bakweri people and bring them under one umbrella for the first time in decades.
According to the project’s initiator, Chief Dr Robert Esuka Endeley, Mbando will be an avenue to reunite the Bakweris and revive their dying culture.
“We want to change the image attributed to the Fako Chiefs as the greatest seller of land… We believe in the dream of the Mokpe man…,” part of his speech at the fundraising reads.
The cultural festival project will be executed alongside the construction of the Bakweri museum, which will be a cultural centre, containing a library and multipurpose hall.
Mimi Mefo Info
