Azore Opio & Elvis Tah
4 December 2008
Some third-generation Nigerians in Boa Diongo village, Bamusso Subdivision, Southwest Region, have began a campaign to sway the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, not to deprive them of the lands they have been eking a living from.
So far, the Nigerians, about 3000, have solicited the intervention of their Consul General for the Southwest and Northwest Region, Dr. Kenneth Nsor Nsor. A letter dated November 20, 2008, signed by Chief Frank Samuel Udo, reads: "on behalf of Nigerian farmers residing [in] Boa Diongo...we are soliciting your utmost fatherly concern in the matter and possibly restrain CDC from commencing with the in worthy compensation scheme."
The letter further reads: "we are Nigerians residing in the said village and barely farm and sell our produce locally to make a living. We have been into this means of livelihood from time immemorial as we only inherited the practice from our fathers and forefathers.
"The practice has been for us to request for a piece of land from the village council to cultivate our crops and when granted, we pay land dues. This arrangement with the village council has survived many a poor Nigerian family resident [in] Boa Diongo until sometime in February, 2008, that we were informed by CDC that the corporation will be extending its crop fields to Boa Diongo, which implicitly means we had to stop farming on the land."
According to the letter, the CDC in April evaluated their crops, but the evaluation report did not reflect the "true picture on the ground." According to them, the CDC evaluation report raised three burning issues; that the CDC officials never held any meeting with those affected; that the crops were "evaluated such that some affected persons would receive less than 20 percent of the amount they spent in growing the crops.
To worsen matters, CDC had informed the Boa Diongo Nigerians that only those who are in possession of residence permits would be compensated.The Nigerians felt that the condition was too stiff as it would eventually deprive most of them of their entitlements.
According to the Consul General, the whole exercise seems shrouded in secrecy and the evaluation is lopsided considering that the Nigerians have been customarily paying their land rents.
First, compensation to the Nigerians would be at 50 percent and to the indigenes, 55 percent.Second, only a little more than 100 Nigerians were evaluated at FCFA 50,000 for two hectares. And, although the compensation scale ranges from FCFA 700,000 to FCFA 100,000, most of the Nigerians would rank below the FCFA 100,000.
Third, the evaluators demanded that the Nigerians pay them for the work they did.
Fourth, and this seems to be the painful twist, CDC says as a government corporation, it would compensate only the Nigerians who are in possession of residence permits. Not consular cards. And that in case any of the Nigerians are not in possession of residence permits, the fee could be offset from the compensation money.
Going by this calculation and considering that most of the Nigerians would end up with less than FCFA 100,000, and a residence permit costs FCFA 120,000, the Nigerians would obviously be left penniless and homeless.
Nsor recalls that the Boa Diongo land issue was brought to their notice and they had a small conference with CDC."The General Manager and some of his senior management staff were here in my office and we discussed the matter. They agreed that they were going to accept consular cards.
We proposed the cards because we thought that they wanted the people to prove that they are Nigerians and the card which is issued at FCFA 3000 is enough to prove that one is a Nigerian. Residence permits also serve that purpose, but it is fairly higher and those people barely live from hand to mouth. I am not making a case for them because they are in Cameroon and they should abide by the laws of Cameroon.
What I am simply saying is that whether you are illegal or legal, the right to property is not an alienable one," said Nsor.In view of this complaint, there has been backward and forward letter writing between the Nigerian Consulate and the CDC with little progress made.
The legal consultants to the Nigerian Union in Cameroon, Yanou & Fossung Consultants, have written to the CDC, drawing its attention to the plight of the Nigerians and its failure to "recognise the right to peaceful possession of the land by the Nigerians earmarked for dispossession."
The consultants urge the CDC to revisit the entire exercise of its evaluation and engage the accredited representatives of the Nigerians in the entire process including the long term plans concerning their homes; cause a proper independent evaluation of both the possessary rights of the land scheduled for dispossession and crops involved and stop the criminalisation of the process through the introduction of resident permit payments.
In the same vein, the secretariat of the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms in the Southwest Region, in another petition, condemns the whole act of trying to dispossess the Nigerians living in Boa Diongo.
When we met with Chief Michael Essien, President of Nigerian Union in Cameroon, he said, "Nigerians pay residence permits, even those who were born here in Cameroon and have lived here for over sixty years are still treated as foreigners; they still go through the hurdles of harassment and extortion... We don't see how second or third generation Nigerians in Cameroon could be treated that way."
As we went to press, the CDC management had not reacted to the last letter the Nigerian Consulate had addressed to it nor to the legal consultants' petition.
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