Dozens of people who identified as natives of Missaka Village in Tiko Subdivision marched to Buea over the weekend to protest against the imprisonment of their chief, HRH Makunde Dipoko Daniel.
The Second Class traditional ruler was reportedly sent into pre-trial detention at the Buea Central Prison over contentions that his villagers say are connected to land issues in his Chiefdom.
Ndive Nganje, a notable of Missaka village who was among the protestors, said Chief Dipoko was detained for intervening in a farmland dispute between some residents of the village.
He speculated that underlying land issues, which have plagued Missaka in the recent past, also had an undertone in the Chief’s sudden arrest and detention.
He and other villagers denounced what they termed the unjust detention of their Chief and beseeched authorities like the South West Governor to intervene.
In a press interview on Saturday, July 13, Ndive recounted the circumstances leading to the Chief’s detention: “What actually happened… is about oil. There’s someone in the Chief’s village who is chasing his step-children from the children’s grandfather’s farmland… The Chief was not in the village; he was in Nigeria. So these children went to attack this man but the Chief called and instructed that the palm oil this man produced from the farmland of those children’s grandfather should be kept in the Palace. He promised to judge the matter when he would return.
“But the man refused to heed the Chief’s instruction and promised to use the judicial police in Buea, who were his friends, to distabilize the village. We took it as a joke.
“But before the Chief returned from Nigeria the man brought convocations from the judicial police in Buea. The surprising thing is that he did not bring any convocation for the Chief. He brought them for two of the grandchildren and some vigilante boys. When the Chief returned and tried to intervene, the police accused him of being a party to crime…
“The Chief gave his statement to the police and returned home. About a month later, the Chief was called to come to the judicial police on Thursday (July 11) with those boys but the summons was later postponed to 1pm on Friday. When the Chief came there at 1pm, they dribbled him around and when he was in Tiko the police said they had a remand warrant against him. He was picked up from Tiko straight into pre-trial detention at the Buea Central Prison when he had not even made a statement. We don’t know which country we are in,” Ndive Nganje recounted.
Before his imprisonment, Chief Daniel Dipoko was already facing agitations around his Chiefdom.
Weeks earlier, a group of people from a village called Njock, which is part of the second class Chiefdom of Missaka, marched to the office of the Divisional Officer of Tiko. They accused him of intervening in their village affairs.
However, his imprisonment has raised concerns about respect for Chieftaincy institutions in Cameroon, as he was reportedly whisked without a warrant and without any justifications.
