Normal business flow returned following Tuesday’s brief interruption by a small portion of traders as to the ownership of the market.

The ownership disputes at the Sandaga Market reached crisis proportion Tuesday, when private security agents broke into and ruffled the office of a trade union. The move reportedly carried out in the night of Monday/Tuesday nearly broke into a protest of considerable magnitude, had it not been for the prompt intervention of the administration.

By midday Tuesday, the aggrieved traders moved to the main entrance, tried to interrupt passage in and out of the market. The Divisional Officer of Douala I, Jean Marc Ekoa Mbarga, and security staff held a dialogue session with the traders who later returned to their businesses.

Squabbles over who owns the market – individual or the City Council – are endemic. A flutter of complaints, yet to be resolved, by dissatisfied traders who, like the idiomatic grass which has to suffer when two elephants are fighting, has frequently than ever occasioned tensions in the market. Last Monday private security agents hired by Cabinet Attou, owned by an individual who purports ownership of the market land, broke into the office of one the trade unions in the market, ransacked and threw out equipment. In the ensuing morning, the trade union leader, Oscar Kong, backed by union members and traders muster a small group of protesters that clogged at the market’s main entrance.

Staff of the Cabinet Attou said they have notified the trade union to quit the office for its new security team. But the trade union leader justified his reluctance to the fact that he secured the office room from the Douala City Council (DCC), and would not quit under instructions of Cabinet Attou which lays controversial ownership claims to it. The tension is coming two weeks after the quit notice. In effect, the administration sealed the disputed office. To the Divisional Officer the office room which is a part of a number of rooms in a DCC built block in the market, was handed over to the owner of the market land via a convention between DCC and cabinet Attou. Notwithstanding, the case about ownership of the market pitting the two structures before the Douala High Court has not yet been given a ruling.