In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

134 Sons and Daughters of the Soil Babanki-Tungoh people were not willing to come to an agreement with their Bambili neighbours. It could also be that they knew their boundary quite well and were not prepared to give up. Another political ramification of the boundary conflict was that state building had been adversely affected. Since 1950s when the boundary conflict erupted the two villages have exercised aggressive proclivities towards each other20 . Despite the July 1973 accord, sporadic trespass into each other’s zone was noted with much acerbity from the Babanki-Tungoh. Had it been there was a peaceful co-existence, between the two villages it is probable and even possible that the fertile piece of land which is the bone of contention would be effectively utilised to the advantage of both parties. The various contributions made by the inhabitants of the two villages living in “diaspora” would have gone a long way to accentuate the socio-economic development of the two villages. As a result of this boundary conflict the zone has been turned almost into a “war zone”. The Bambili were fighting with the Nkwen and Bambui, and Babanki-Tungoh clashes with the Balikumbat and Bamessing. Furthermore, other neighbouring villages in the Bamenda Grassfields tend to copy the example of the Bambili and BabankiTungoh boundary conflict. In the treatment of the consequences it was realised that they affected areas beyond the two villages. The boundary conflict has not been going on without any attempts at solving it. Several solutions have been attempted by the colonial masters, the Christian denominations civil and legal administrators and the two villages to resolve the conflict. D) Efforts at Resolving the Boundary Conflict The previous chapters reveal that the boundary conflict between Babanki-Tungoh and Bambili has been caused by a piece of fertile land which lies between the two villages. They (the two villages) make different claims as to where the boundary is/or should be. Thus, the main difficulty is to establish a boundary acceptable to both villages. In order to better understand the endeavour made towards the demarcation of the boundary, it is necessary to examine the claims of each community on the disputed land with the main aim of resolving the problem. 135 Chapter Five: Consequences of the Bambili and Babanki-Tungoh Boundary Conflict Map 3, in the next page, shows the disputed area and this presents the claims of the two communities and the various boundaries that have been drawn in an unsuccessful attempt to resolve the problem. Section “B - W” represents the claims as made by the Babanki-Tungoh, the Bambili claim the section “B - A”. None of the communities have been willing to recognise the claim of the other party. The demarcation of the boundary between these communities by the Bafut Native Court Judgement of December 11, 1953 is indicated by Section “C-T”. This boundary was established in the presence of Fon Awemo of Bambili and Fon Asik of Babanki-Tungoh and it was registered in the Bafut Native Court Civil Suit No. 23/53. Yet it did not satisfy the two communities. After many other attempts, Ward, the British resident in Bamenda province, suggested another boundary which was later rejected by the two communities because it did not coincide with their respective claims. Another boundary, the Westmacott boundary represented by section “M - W”, was later established by Westmacott on May 15, 1958 at Bafut. Beside, several meetings were also convened by the traditional and educated elite of the two neighbouring villages in an attempt to resolve the boundary impasse. On February 13, 1965, a meeting of the Bafut Chiefs took place in the Bafut Council21 . According to the minutes of that meeting signed by J.N. Foncha on February 15, 1965, the members arrived at a five-point decision22 . Amongst other things in the five-point decision, the meeting attached great importance to the Westmacott decision and the final demarcation of the disputed area. From the above it is clear that it was difficult to implement the decision. This is because it was not easy for somebody who had been living in a place for a long time to give up his “assets”, especially compounds and farms and secondly transfer his “citizenship”. What is more, a communiqué of the Senior Divisional Officer to Prime Minister J.N. Foncha on July 27, 1965 rendered the implementation of point III impossible. In the communiqué, the S.D.O. said: We have discussed over the demarcation...

Share