They held their elective general assembly in Bangem at weekend.

Chiefs of the South West Region under the banner, "South West Chiefs Conference, (SWECC) have pledged their support to the President of the Republic, Paul Biya and promised to stand by him against what they termed malicious tendencies by some misguided citizens to tarnish his image. They made the commitment in Bangem, Kupe-Muanenguba Division at the weekend during SWECC's general assembly.

Another outcome of the assembly was the election of Chief Etoge Pius from Kupe-Muanenguba to takeover the baton of command from Chief Dr Ofonda Esoh Itoh from Ndian Division in accordance with SWECC's rotary policy of the post of president. The Kupe-Muanenguba SWECC's general assembly was meant to evaluate their activities, plan for the future and devise ways of executing priority projects for the conference and region in general.

A project at hand is SWECC's multipurpose conference centre in Buea. The centre comprises notably an auditorium with a sitting capacity of 1000 persons, equipped with translation facilities, stores, service rooms a hotel containing 50 lodging rooms, private conference hall, library and a museum. In their report of activities from February 3, 2008 to March 15, 2010, the chiefs said the project is at the foundation level. This, thanks to contributions from Orange Cameroon, CDC, SONARA and the Nigerian Consul General in Buea.

Speaking during the colourful and crowd-pulling ceremony, the representative of the Prime Minister, Professor Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, also Minister of Forestry and Wildlife, enjoined the chiefs to shun differences and unit both for the good of the association and the region in general. He reminded the newly-elected 13-man bureau to double their efforts, strive for efficiency so as to ably occupy their positions as custodians of tradition and liaise with the administration in order to speed up the development of the region. In an on-the-spot fundraising, liquid cash and pledges estimated at over FCFA 13 million as well as material donations were raised for the SWECC's multipurpose conference centre project.

Successive speakers at the ceremony, ranging from the outgone president, Chief Etoge Pius to the president of the Kupe-Muanenguba Chiefs Conference, Chief Komesue Anthony Elong, decried disunity, backbiting, vices which they stressed, have kept the region in the shackles of underdevelopment. They said it was clear that disunity manifested by infighting for political or administrative positions, mutual suspicion, distrust, and slander are used as tools by some to run down others. "In utter malice or jealously, we kill the goose that lays the golden egg not minding whether we shall have another one or not", the outgone president said.

Challenges which the incoming president said he and his bureau are aware of. "We will strive to continue from where our predecessors left, taking into consideration changing times and evolutions in the world", Chief Etoge Pius said. The conference was attended among others by the former Prime Minister, Chief Ephraim Inoni.