By Andrew Nsoeka
An investigation into the land grab in Buea, where court orders are ignored, ministerial decisions are defied, and armed men with German Shepherds chase farmers off their ancestral land, all with the apparent blessing of the highest office in the land.
Mokake Joseph Luma stands on land his grandfathers farmed before Cameroon was even a nation. The cocoa trees his father planted still bear fruit. The graves of his ancestors rest beneath the soil. But the paper in his hand tells a different story, one in which none of this belongs to him.
The document is a land certificate. It was issued to a village that did not exist before 2021. It covers 80 hectares. It bears the name of Paul Molua Tonga, a young man with no royal blood, who now calls himself chief of “Lower Ewonda.”
“Every time we confront him, he tells us the same thing,” Luma says. “He says the orders are coming from above.”
The orders, court records and ministerial findings show, come from the very top. What has happened in Ewonda over the past five years is not a land dispute. It is a one of the several land heists executed by administrators, legitimised by forged documents, and enforced by armed men who reportedly answer to the governor’s office while the courts and the Ministry of State Property scream into the void.
And the Fako elite, those who hold the power to speak, have said nothing at all.
2021: A Village Is Born From Thin Air
Ewonda is old. Its history stretches back before independence. The 1963 and 1968 gazettes of West Cameroon mention only one Ewonda. No “Lower Ewonda.” No separate village on the downslope toward Bonduma.
When Paul Molua Tonga emerged in 2021 claiming that such a village existed and that he was its Chief, the late Chief of Ewonda rejected it outright. The Buea Chiefs Conference reviewed the archives and reached the same conclusion: the village had never existed.
The traditional rulers did not mince words. In a petition, they wrote that they “categorically reject any administrative attempt to create or recognise a village whose existence is not supported by history, tradition, or the law.”
They listed Ewonda’s boundaries as Buea, Bonduma, Bokwai, Bova One, and Mount Cameroon National Park. “We refuse any administrative attempts to alter these boundaries for political or personal gain,” they declared.
Their objection was ignored
Barrister Nyonbadmia Evine, who would later represent the landowners in court, explains the legal absurdity at the heart of the scheme.
“A village created in 2021 is like a child born in 2021,” he says. “The question is whether a three-year-old child can apply for a land certificate in Cameroon in 2025. Certainly, he is not eligible. And if about 88 hectares of land is being ceded to them, then this is land grabbing.”
2022–2024: Manufacturing Legitimacy
The creation of Lower Ewonda was only the first step. To complete the act, the land grabbers needed paperwork.
The first major breakthrough came on September 20, 2024, when Southwest Governor, Bernard Okalia Bilai, signed Regional Order No. 0013/RO/G/GSW.79/ST/SG/IRSTD. The order reframed what was fundamentally a land dispute as a Chieftaincy matter, implying that the Minister of Territorial Administration had “rehabilitated” Lower Ewonda.
There was just one problem: the Minister had done no such thing. In 2022, Territorial Administration Minister Paul Atanga Nji had cancelled 15 fake Chiefdoms in Fako, including Lower Ewonda. The reversal came in July 2023, when he ordered their restoration. The reasons were never explained.
Observers at the time noted that the restoration order coincided with a surge in land grabbing across Fako.
But the Governor’s order was not enough. The land registrar, who is responsible for issuing land certificates, refused to sign it. Sources say he stalled the process from 2022 onward, insisting there were no concrete documents to justify the issuance. As a son of the soil, he knew what was at stake.
Then came February 2025. A letter from the Ministry of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure arrived, addressed to Tonga Tobias Vefonge. It stated that no hierarchical appeal had been filed against the governor’s regional order within the regulatory deadline.
The land registrar had run out of legal cover. The certificates were issued.
2025: The Courts Speak, And Are Ignored
The people of Ewonda did not surrender. In May 2025, a fact-finding mission from the Ministry of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure convened in Buea. More than 50 Ewonda residents attended. The Lower Ewonda side sent only their lawyer, the president of their traditional committee, and a handful of supporters. They called no witnesses.
Ewonda’s representatives presented archival documents showing that one of the land certificates had been issued in the name of a dead man. Mola Njie, Joseph Mokake, Molua David, and Francis Sako each testified about the land they had inherited from their parents. They showed the commission what the bulldozers had destroyed: bananas, palms, plums, maize, vegetables, beehives. They showed the desecrated graves of their ancestors.
Lawyer Lyonga Walters, representing the neighboring village of Bova, issued a warning. “This is a threat to public peace and tranquility that cannot be taken lightly,” he said. He recalled that protesting youths had been threatened with gunfire.
The Lower Ewonda lawyer, Obi Rene, insisted his clients had followed due process. He claimed they had published notices and announced on CRTV that occupants should leave. He said the land certificate application process had proceeded “without any opposition.”
On April 10, 2025, the Court of First Instance in Buea disagreed.
The court conducted a site visit and confirmed that Ewonda residents were in “effective occupation” of the land – their houses were there, their farms were there, they were living on it. Citing the legal principle that “you cannot put something on nothing,” the court suspended the Governor’s regional order.
Nyonbadmia’s argument was simple: if the regional order is suspended, everything built upon it collapses. The land certificates, the village creation, the entire edifice – all of it stands on a foundation that has been removed.
“The land certificates are based on the regional order of the governor,” he says. “The order cannot be suspended, and they are using this land certificate, which just came to our attention a few days ago, like it is valid.”
The court’s suspension order was ignored.
2025: Bulldozers, Thugs, And German Shepherds
While the legal battle raged, the people of Ewonda faced a more visceral assault.
In November 2025, Buea Divisional Officer Abba Abdouraman led a team into Ewonda to demarcate the boundaries of “Lower Ewonda.” Residents refused to accompany him. They gathered at the old palace of their late chief where his remains are buried and demanded to know why the DO was demarcating a village they did not recognise, especially when the Ministry of State Property had already sent an investigative mission and the matter was before the courts.
Abdouraman’s answer revealed the chain of command. He said he was acting on instructions from Fako Senior Divisional Officer Viang Mekala, who was acting on a letter from the Ministry of Territorial Administration, “which came from the Presidency.”
Nyonbadmia challenged the legality of the operation on the spot. “The law gives the power to demarcate boundaries exclusively to the Minister of State Property, not the Minister of Territorial Administration,” he pointed out. There was no boundary dispute between Ewonda and Lower Ewonda, because Lower Ewonda did not exist.
Meanwhile, a different kind of war was being waged on the farms.
Residents describe hired thugs and so-called vigilantes armed with machetes and accompanied by German Shepherds entering farms, forcing farmers and women to abandon their crops. Some are kidnapped and taken to the Chief’s house, then handed over to the Gendarmerie, where they are held for hours before being released.
On August 7, 2026, Luma Daniel was attacked by three men with dogs while returning from his farm. He was taken to the Chief’s palace, then to the Gendarmerie Legion. He spent hours in custody before being released.
“I now have to gather some of my brothers to accompany me whenever I need to go to the farm,” he says.
Molua Joseph, an elderly resident, says vigilante groups with “bouncers and German Shepherds” are preventing farmers from harvesting their crops.
“They send vigilante groups with bouncers and German Shepherds and other dogs, making it impossible for us to harvest our crops, sell them, and use the proceeds to send our children to school,” he says.
Another resident, speaking on condition of anonymity, says families are struggling because they can no longer access farms where they cultivated palm nuts, bananas, and plantains to pay school fees. Women have reportedly been threatened with rape.
Ferdinand Motutu, youth leader of Ewonda, says the youths have appealed to the administration for help. His warning is blunt.
“If the administration does not want to help us, we are not guaranteeing peace on our land because we are not ready to give our land to strangers,” he says.
The Minister Acts
On March 4, 2026, Minister of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure Henri Eyebe Ayissi signed an order that declared Land Certificates No. 016325 and 016331/Fako null and void.
The decision followed a petition filed by Barrister Nyonbadmia on behalf of Joseph Moka Luma and other affected landowners. An investigative mission had been dispatched to Buea in May 2025. The findings were damning.
The certificates, the minister found, had been obtained through “administrative error and fraud.” The beneficiaries had engaged in “inappropriate appropriation of third parties’ developments” to justify the procedure, thereby misleading the administration.
The order cited Article 27 of Decree No. 76-165 of April 27, 1976, which lays down the conditions for obtaining land certificates and provides legal grounds for cancelling titles obtained through irregular means.
“Land Certificates No. 016325 and 016331/Fako are hereby declared null and void,” the order states. “The parcels of land initially covered by Land Certificates No. 016325 and 016331/Fako regain their original juristic nature of national land.”
The Minister instructed the Divisional Chief of Service for Surveys and the Land Registrar for Fako to implement the decision.
Together with seven other certificates cancelled in November 2025, a total of nine land titles linked to Lower Ewonda have now been voided.
For the people of Ewonda, it is a victory, but a fragile one.
The Silence Of The Elites
Throughout the five-year ordeal, one question has haunted Ewonda: Where are the Fako elites?
“The elites are not coming to rescue us from this administrative scandal,” says Molua Joseph.
Barrister Nyonbadmia is more direct. He chastises Fako politicians for failing to fight for their people.
“Well-meaning politicians who care about the interest of their people will not sit idly by and watch the people dispossessed of their ancestral lands by administrators who should be protecting them,” he says. “I expect politicians to stand with the people at such times, but I am rather surprised as they have chosen to watch from a distance as their people suffer, fighting for their ancestral lands.”
He notes that elected officials have immunity precisely so they can speak on behalf of their constituents. “They don’t need their votes, because in a system where there is democracy, there is citizen participation in governance. The elected officials are supposed to come out and talk on behalf of their people. They have immunity, and that immunity is partly because they have to use it and talk to their people.”
The Buea Chiefs Conference did speak out – they wrote to the administration disputing Lower Ewonda’s traditional existence and affirming that their boundaries are with Ewonda, not Lower Ewonda. But traditional authorities have limited power against administrative bulldozers.
What is happening in Ewonda, Nyonbadmia says, is “a high point that shows that there is administrative or executive interference in Cameroon’s judicial system.”
“These acts can only happen in Fako and nowhere else around the country,” he adds.
Fako Land Grabbing As A Pattern, Not An Incident
Ewonda is not an isolated case. It is part of a systematic pattern of land grabbing in Fako Division.
In 2014, a National Anti-Corruption Commission (CONAC) team visited Fako to investigate land grabbing allegations against then-Buea Mayor Ekema Patrick, Southwest Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai, and Fako Senior Divisional Officer Zang III. Lawyer Ikome Ngongi told investigators that these administrators “used their positions to coerce traditional rulers into signing land transfer documents, which were then used to establish fake land certificates.” He noted that of the 1,800 hectares of CDC land handed over to indigenous people, “less than 20 percent belonged to Bakweri natives.”
In 2022, Territorial Administration Minister Paul Atanga Nji cancelled 15 fake Chiefdoms in Fako, including Lower Ewonda. In July 2023, he restored them. The reasons were never explained.
Professor Dorothy Njeuma, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Buea, wrote in 2021 that administrators, traditional rulers, and non-natives were playing a “dirty game” at the expense of the people.
“Personal ambition, selfish interests, and greed have overridden the collective interests of the people,” an academic study concluded, “creating negative feelings among a dispossessed and weakened population who feel cheated and discriminated against by their own chiefs and elites in land handover projects.”
In 2026, the people of Ewonda are still waiting.
They have won a ministerial decision, but its implementation depends on administrators accused of participating in the grab. They have won a court order, but it has been ignored. They are pursuing civil and criminal actions, but the defendants include the Governor, the Senior Divisional Officer, the Divisional Officer, and the Land Registrar.
Meanwhile, Paul Tonga Molua, the man accused of being the facade for the entire scheme, remains untouched. His German Shepherds still roam Ewonda’s farms.