Danpullo Yet To Be Stopped From Grabbing Esu Land
By Azore Opio
The Fon of Esu, Albert Kawzuh Kum a Chuo II, and his subjects are yet to stop Alhaji Baba Danpullo from grabbing nearly half of their village in Fungom Sub-division, Menchum Division in the North West Region.
From a piece of ‘Wuondere’ land measuring approximately 2 to 3 square kilometres, Baba Danpullo now occupies vast lands stretching to Kaidem in the south, Mukang/Kedjong in the north and Ewo in the west.
“As far as we are concerned, Baba Dnapullo has no documents signed by the Fon,” Meh Constantine, Village Council Chair, told The Green Vision.
For 27 years, Esu villagers, through their traditional leaders, have been begging Baba Danpullo to dialogue with them over a disputed piece of land the former Fon “gave” him to graze his cows. But Danpullo has never appeared for the dialogue. The cat-and-mouse game that the business magnate has been playing with Esu villagers boiled over in 2013, leading to the expulsion of some youths from the village. But before that, Fon Kum Achuo II went down memory lane in an attempt to situate the protracted land dispute. He spoke to The Green Vision at his palace in Esu.
“On November 23, 2007, I was identified, then in February 2008, I was enthroned. On June 28, 2008, Alhaji Baba Danpullo paid me a condolence visit. I had never known him before. Danpullo offered me a cow plus money which I handed over to my parents. Before then, I had held meetings with my notables, councillors and quarter heads and they told me my father gave Danpullo a piece of land to graze his cattle in 1986,” Kum Achuo II said.
According to the Fon, his predecessor sent his notables to show Danpullo a piece of land traversed by a river called Imia.
“As soon as they crossed the river, Danpullo supposedly said, “Why don’t you give me this land?” said Fon Kum Achuo II.
Sometime in 2011, I received a telephone call from Danpullo and he said, “what about that my land?” The whole of 2012, Danpullo did not appear in Esu. Then on March 20, 2013, reports reached me of pillars being brought to Danpullo’s ranch; Elba Ranch, which is on our land. The village youths came to me and said, “Are you aware of pillars being ferried to Danpullo’s ranch?”
The youths who wanted to create awareness wrote to the Minister of Land Tenure and State Property. Four days later, I wrote to the Divisional Officer and copied hierarchy. Then some subjects reported that Esu youths were disturbing the peace by keeping night vigils to keep the pillars already brought in from being planted and none to be further brought into Esu.
The Green Vision learnt that on May, 2013, Danpullo promised to come and discuss with the Fon and his elites from abroad as well as notables, but he rather sent his Manager of Ranches, a lawyer and a coordinator of two of two ranches.
Fon Kum Achuo II said the Manager from Ndawara removed 1 million frs cfa for a past development meeting and another million for the elites’ transport.
“The Esu Development Association President took the trio to his home. They came back half an hour later and said, ‘Danpullo will talk to you only,” Fon Kum Achuo II said.
He said Danpullo called some seven minutes later and told him, “My people will come to work on the ranch; to plant pillars, so no disturbance.” From then on, events happened in successive rapidity. The youths became bitter and revealed that the Youth President, Nzo Christopher, had received some 2 million frs cfa from Danpullo.
“My brother, a prince, Meh Pascal, arranged everything. The Youth President (a bendskin rider) later confessed that he kept 340.000 frs cfa for himself and 330.000 frs cfa to a bendskin, Ivo Kenah. The Prince, my brother, kept one million. The youths wanted to lynch them but I gave out a peace plant and for security reasons, I advised the Youth President to leave. And he left for Wum,” the Fon said.
He added that six other youths were further interrogated. And on June 28, 2013, they were expelled from the village.
“A fortnight later, they wrote letters of apology. I was also reported to the State Counsel who pleaded with me to consider forgiving the erring youths. I conferred with my people and I allowed the youths to come back to the village after a month and two weeks,” said Fon Kum Achuo II.
The youths were fined variously, the Fon told The Green Vision.
“The first three were fined a pig and 20 bags of salt each; the rest 10 bags of salt each,” he said.
Despite all the clamour, dispossession and misery that Danpullo’s quest for land has thrown Esu people into, the people say they aren’t out to chase Danpullo from their midst.
“All we want is for Baba to come and point to to us exactly where the former Fon showed him to graze his cows. We don’t want to drive him out of the village,” the Fon said.
He said they would like to relocate Baba Danpullo “possibly to an area called Tonkesong around Benakuma Sub-division in Esimbi clan.”
“The administration brought him peacefully, and we appeal to the same administration to help us solve this problem,” Ndzi Venatius Tem, former Esu Village Council Chairman, told The Green Vision.
Beneath Elba
The expulsion of the youths from Esu village was just the tip of the Elba “iceberg”. Underneath, the hills on which Danpullo’s cattle roam and graze freely, flow tumultuous currents.
Danpullo’s incursion into Esu dates as far back as 1986. Ndzi Venatius Tem was about 40 years old then and a farmer.
“Fai Yengo, who was the Senior Divisional Officer (SDO) for Menchum Division, introduced Baba Danpullo to the then Fon, Joseph Meh Buh II, with promises of electricity, potable water, employment for youths and others,” said Ndzi Venatius.
Ndzi said three weeks later, he, one Charles Fuh Kang (RIP), Chu Buh Venatius (RIP), Tai Simon and Joseph Bin Geh, after learning about Danpullo, approached their Fon, “but he drove us away. We wrote to the Ministry of Territorial Administration and copied the Governor, the SDO, Special Branch, the Gendarmerie and the Presidency, protesting the allocation of land to Bada. Baba had a copy,” said Ndzi.
Afterwards, Ndzi further said, police from Bamenda arrested them and took them to Wum, “but the Wum Public Security Commissioner refused to detain us and asked the police to take us Bamenda. The police abandoned us.”
Five years later, Esu people began understanding the impact of Baba Danpullo.
Nzdi recalled that Baba used to use gendarmes to intimidate villagers.
“There used to be three quarters; Malo, Ewo, Wuondere. There were markets, farmlands, grazing land and families living there; all these have been uprooted and dispersed,” Ndzi said.
He added, “We want to arrange and relocate Baba elsewhere but he hasn’t come.”
In 1993, Danpullo reportedly used gendarmes and bulldozers to evict Esu villagers from the Wuondere land.
“People died,” said the Fon.
Augustine Foh, a driver, recounted his ordeal in the hands of Danpullo’s gendarmes when he was working for the Mission in Esu.
“I took the pick-up to fetch firewood and gendarmes stopped me. They impounded the vehicle. I parked it at the Elba Ranch house, left the key there and went to report to Father. They later had to beg the Father,” Foh said.
Charles Zih, a teacher, told The Green Vision that once a young man was shot for passing through the disputed land.
Between 1999 and 2008 when William Meh lived on the disputed land, under a nominal tax system, and making a living from a grinding mill, some 70 families from Ewo, Malo and Kendzong were displaced.
“Between March and June 2000, Baba came in person. He used a tractor to evacuate the villager from Ewo to dump them in Esu town. Some people kept their possessions at the Fon’s palace,” Meh said.
He said houses were broken down and roofs pulled down using ropes hitched to the tractor.
Baba has encroached into farm settlements in the villages of Isong, Indzem, Munkep, Munka, Tukesong and Sangwa, Meh told The Green Vision.
“He has two dips for his cattle and the gamalin they use to treat the cows is emptied into River Imia which contains fish and crocodiles. Farmers too drink water from the river which is contaminated with chemical residues from the dips,” Meh said.
Baba Danpullo seems immune to the many petitions and pleas addressed to him.
Petitions
The first petition against Danpullo went out in October 1987 addressed to the North West Governor.
The petition written and signed by “Esu Conscious Elements” reads thus; “We the sons of Esu who have the future of our unborn generations in mind and whose names appear below feel it right to raise this matter at this early stage before it gets late. We emphatically state that we are not against the arrival and settlement of Alhadji Baba in Esu but against two points namely; the way and manner he has acquired this land and his abusive use and violation of the limits shown to him.
“In the first place, the very area allocated to Alhadji Baba is a level land quite suitable for farming just at the outskirts of Esu village. With regard to the rapid growth and fast development of Esu, it is likely that the village will extend there in the next five years. Since late 1986, a certain Mr. Ngwa had started feasibility studies of the area after prior consultation for the Esu Fon who genuinely accepted his settlement in the area for farming purposes and generally, the Esu people welcomed this idea. He Mr. Ngwa kept on gradually following up steps required for the acquisition of land.
“To our greatest surprise, the second man Alhadji Baba suddenly appeared and commenced work on this very land on the 14th if August 1987. From this the Esuans conscious of their welfare started suspecting irregularities and double deal…”
The petition concluded with an appeal to the authorities, “in the interest of peace, harmonious co-existence and conscious of the well-being of our future generations” to immediately intervene and put things the right way.
The authorities did not act.
On November 28, 1997, nine quarter heads from Esu wrote a letter to the Governor of the Northwest. It was a reminder of an earlier petition dated June 30, 1993.
It partly reads: “…we the quarter heads of Esu on behalf of the population very strongly appeal to you to intervene on the matter (acquisition of land at Esu by Alhadji Baba Amadou Danpullo for a cattle ranch) and avoid a hopeless confrontation by stopping Alhadji Baba from planting pillars which we are reliably informed he is about to do in no distant date. As your Excellency even knows, the ranch is very close to the village. Instead of shifting his ranch, Alhadji Baba has made it a duty to engulf more and more of land from farmers, thereby leaving thousands of people in Esu every year to groan under the pangs of starvation.”
In 2001, three successive petitions were addressed against Danpullo, the first one condemning “illegal detention, forceful eviction and terrorism practices by Alhadji Baba”; the second one reiterating the “unjustified eviction and destruction of homes, crops at Ewo Quarter in Esu” still by Alhadji Baba and the third proposing solutions to the aggravating and prevailing problems in Esu.
All these petitions seem to have fallen on deaf ears, and yet the people of Esu say they are anxious to discuss with Alhadji Baba as is re-echoed by the President of the Esu Cultural and Development Association (ECUDA), Zang Julius.
“Normally, the development association does not get involved in land issues, but as a citizen of Esu, my stand is dialogue. We don’t want to drive Baba away; we just want that he comes and discusses with our Fon in a peaceful manner,” Zang told The Green Vision.
A telephone call to Alhadji Baba Danpullo’s office was not immediately returned. Even a promise made to The Green Visoin by the Manager of Elba Ranch, Rabiu Mohammed, was in vain.
