SOS CULTURAL CLASHES IN THE NSO' KINGDOM, WEST AFRICA

S.O.S CULTURAL CLASHES IN NSO' KINGDOM, WESTERN AFRICA

I was sleeping to get up and find this wild fire, call it Cultural Clashes of Westernism versus Africanism ignited again. The good thing is that it is not the first time and will not be the last as people do not learn. Traditional and Western values had existed side by side since the days of the German Fathers in the Cameroons, Mill Hill in the British Cameroons and local Fathers and independent governments of Cameroon Republic. These authorities just let the local go on with their traditions and that is what UNESCO advocates. The German Fathers (1884-1915) took delight in them and studied all. They found out that there were similarities with Christianity and that formed the bases of their evangelization. The displays of jujus are part and parcel of Nso' traditional religion in Western Africa as elsewhere in Africa, call it beliefs. Other aliens used to call it paganism. On a closer observation, Father John Emonts, SCJ (1910s) remarked that the Nso’ elements were worshiping one supreme God but that they had personal gods, akin to guardian angels in Western global religion, Christianity.

Neither Fr. Emonts nor the German officials who were sometimes hawkish went after the Nso'people to abandon their beliefs. They invited the supreme ruler of Nso', King Ngah to OLD NKAR, we now call Shisong a corruption of (Mission Station) and paid him return visits. They exchanged gifts and recruited princes and princesses to attend Western Schools and enrolled with the Catholic Church to learn doctrine. The German fathers accepted the King's role as the leader of the religious beliefs of Nso' Kingdom. There was peace from the 1910s until hitherto when an Senior Divisional Officer (SDO) who hails from Bamum in the Western Region representing Cameroon Republic government challenged the displays of masqueraders at one of the wards of Kumbo town, the capital of Nso' Kingdom called the Squares. The inhabitants did not take it lightly and have not stopped protesting on the Internet and local media.

On cultural clashes, who can say it better than Kenjo wan Jumbam in his novel The White Man of God when the Rev. Father, one of the characters unmasked the masquerader and found out that it was his Catechist who had assumed it. Father got the shock of his life and fainted. Did he fire the Catechist from his post in the Church when he recovered? You may now draw your conclusions.

When we look at the Old Testament, there are no differences from what Nso' religion of the past was and perhaps is still though modified to move abreast with modernism. When I make this statement I do not want to go down in history as being one who stated that Africans should abandon Christianity or whatever alien religious belief they feel like following. It should be complementary and relevant parts of them that could be adapted and adopted. As adults, Africans have their rights to pursue the beliefs they like. That is the free will. Let no one stand on any podium to say that his was better that that or that. That is what cause wars where Arabs and Africans met because Islam wants to tell others that their religious beliefs are supreme. Are they? If they are, who gave them that sort of information? I am a Catholic and I feel that is it the best but I am not going to impose it on my fellow Nsonites (Nso') nor condemn what others follow, Nsotology, Nso' religious beliefs which is, and will be as God was not sleeping when He created it and its believers.

Let me now come to what the SDO who hails from Bamum to the south of Bui County has done out of what others may think as naivety. For those of us reading for the first time, this debacle started when the SDO, the authority representing the Cameroon Republic in the former British Cameroons, variously called now The Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) asked for a ban of displaying of masqueraders at a place called the Squares in Nso' Kingdom in that region. It is the government of occupation’s attempt to strip The Southern Cameroons of its roots so as to easily assimilate them as they have been doing since 1961. From the passion of the people of this area that I know at close quarters, his life could be made a living hell in Nso' or those of his cohorts if he does not withdraw his statement or pack his bag and baggage and go home to Yaunde, the head office of the Cameroon Republic. Traditional beliefs are more than a passion particular when the season for their reenactment in April is approaching. It is their religious belief and to challenge it is to challenge the Nso' soldiers and their ruler who to them is above the Western government that is alien in the region. I am seeing the Brazilian and the UK governments banning annual carnivals that are tourist attractions in impoverished areas. They generate so much revenue that the stoic government of the day underestimates. What industries are there in these regions and what do they of Yaunde want to replace Nso’ carnival with? French dances? Good for assimilation so as to continue to set on Southern Cameroons as hyenas after their preys.

Even Father James Nielen, a Dutch Mill Hill accepted Kikum masqueraders at St. Augustine's College in the 1960s. Was he not a Catholic Priest and is St. Augustine's College that has turned our nuns and priests not Roman Catholic? Did he see the need to ban traditional beliefs because they were pagan things? No. This was a learned man of God with a doctorate degree and did what he had to do after careful consideration and not out of sentiments.

I saw that after the death of Papa Somo, Fai wo Koffi, a senator in that Kingdom, there was the kikum that led the procession after the requiem mass from the church to Banka compound. What was happening? I saw the Holy Mass being Ngonsonized by late Father Losha and Father James Neilen we saw above and many others. Rome was not against it as it had given its blessing to traditional masses. It was no longer the Latin services that made Christians to recite prayers in Latin and did not know what they were saying was done the traditional way copying the traditional ways of worshiping. All was gradually being vernacularized and see where we are today. The Christian worshiping is not as boring as it used to be and masqueraders dance at the offertories in Catholic Churches in Nso'. Where is the problem? Who told anyone that God who gave the Nso' that tradition will not accept their worship?


THERE ARE THREE CODE OF LAWS IN NSO' KINGDOM

Let me not go too far away from the SDO. There are three laws in Southern Cameroons, namely, the English laws, the traditional laws and the “enforced” French laws. The rulers from Yaunde are aware of all these. You can now see where the SDO whose name we did not get as we went to the press is going wrong. The UNESCO can never agree with this man of the Government of Cameroon interfering in the traditional beliefs of Nso' or any other tribe for the spurious reason that they impede the flow of traffic. Has he and his cohorts ever seen the Nothinghill Canival in London, UK, the Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the Kankoran in Mbour, Senegal when young men are being taken away from the Secret Forest. Portions of the area where they are held come to a stand still, not only for one day but for days and sometimes for weeks. The Nso’ traditional displays had been before Cameroun Republic and there is no question of banning it for whatever reason. They create jobs, entertain the public and are peaceful. To the UNESCO, these traditional displays are as relevant as Westernism that the SDO, the man of the Government is representing. The government official may look at it arrogantly as decadence. D.O. Sule who held from Fumban from could not dream of issuing such a statement for he knew that he would be touching the cultural roots of the Nso People and consequently that of Southern Cameroons that is being assimilated. He shook the wasps' nest for no other reason other than pride and attempt to skin Nso' of its beliefs as they have done of the region's politics and economic development. What do they want?

You could be arrested and imprisoned for infringing any of the three laws mentioned above. If some one could prove that you are killing him with your witchcraft, you could be tried in the traditional court and imprisoned or fined. We still have litigation or cases being held in palaces around and some defaulters are whipped mercilessly or imprisoned as stipulated by the traditional laws. People have trust in traditional laws and beliefs than in most Western courts of law. Because men like the SDO in question, his police and gendarmes take bribes and there is nothing called justice in their courts. Hence people have more faith in traditional beliefs and laws than in what some see as Western chicaneries.

The naive SDO who hails from Bamum forgot that he is perhaps the 50th DO in Nso'. Even the German SDOs, British that used to come all the way from Bamenda dared not touch the Nso' laws or traditional beliefs. If an Ngwerong (police personae) is walking along and you do not do what every Nso' man is supposed to do, you could be bull whipped by the Ngwerong. There will be no court in the Southern Cameroons that is being ruled by Cameroon Republic represented by officials of this SDO genre that will prosecute a Ngwerong who is a Nso' official regulator. Why? It is because a traditional law has been infringed. Similarly, if a masquerade is displaying at Buea or Mamfe, Santa, Otu, We, Wum or Ndian and an Nso' man does not do as the locals or natives there do, they have the right to punish him or her. Do not play the game of naivety by saying that you do not know. Be in Chicago, London or Abudja and commit a crime. Will you expect to go free because you did not know the rules, by-laws or laws of the state or country? Remember when you are in Rome you must do what the Romans do. Mr. SDO, Nso' is no exception.
Thanks for reading.

Dr. Viban Viban Ngo.

PS: Now go to the commentary section and write for us the situation in your kingdom, tribe or country. Let us keep the debate alive. If we are stripped of our tradition, what else do we have?