The Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, for Mezam, presided a crisis meeting on June 8, 2015.

For some years now, the people of Santa Sub-division in Mezam Division of the North West Region have been having some disagreements over if they have First, Second or Third Class Chief or if some communities have been classified with specific boundaries. This problem that has for some time led to bloodshed and armed conflicts is gradually getting close to being solved.

On Tuesday, June 8, 2015, the Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, for Mezam, Nguele Nguele Felix, called for a meeting that brought together the warring factions. According to the SDO, the main bone of contention was that the Fon of Akum, several years ago appointed a certain Wanki Francis Akamanchu as the Quarter Head of Santa-Akum, a community in Santa Sub-division but today the said Akamanchu carries himself around as a Third Class Chief.

He goes around performing all the rites in his community as a Fon. On the other hand, the people of Santa village, another community in Santa Sub-division, claim to be an autonomous community and are now doing things such as carving out their boundaries.

Against this backdrop, the SDO  went on, there have been fighting in the whole of Santa Sub-division as the self-acclaimed Third Class Chief of Santa-Akum always  clashes with the Fon of Akum while the people of   Santa village always get into conflict with their neighbors as they fight to carve out their boundaries. With all these, Nguele Nguele Felix  explained that he wrote to the Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation and from the reply, the SDO said it was clear that  the 1992 decree creating Santa Sub-division  did not give authority to the Fon to create any chieftaincy for the creation  of a village does not mean the creation of a chieftaincy.

Thirdly, the Santa-Akum community has not been classified and as such is not recognised by the government. Thirdly, nobody has classified Santa Sub-division into First, Second and Third Class Fondoms or chieftaincies. He further explained that the only classified and recognised chieftaincies in Santa Sub-division are:  Akum, Baligham, Pinyin and Awing, as per the West Cameroon gazette.

He said until MINATD will uplift the 1996 ban on the creation of Fondoms and chieftaincies, nobody has the right to do so. He made it clear that there are other Fondoms and communities like Chomba that are yet to be recognised and classified but then there is peace in the village. As such, Nguele Nguele Felix called on the people of Santa Sub-division to remain calm while waiting for government actions.