Assassination of Belo Mayor: Court slams 25-year sentence on deputy mayor.

The Bamenda Military Court is said to have passed the ruling on Wednesday, April 15, 2026. 

The court said Otto is guilty of complicity in the assassination of Dr Ngong.

Three other persons said to have been detained at the Bamenda Central Prison, since investigations opened into the matter, are said to have been acquitted.

Among them are; the Head Teacher of Government Primary School Baingo in Belo Subdivision, a staff of the Council whose name The Guardian Post got as Julius Kumbam and the Secretary General of the Belo Council, Nges Ntam Confidence.

Otto and three others are said to have been detained following several months of investigations. 

Findings went underway shortly after the May 20, 2024, killing of the mayor around the Belo municipal grandstand that sent shockwaves across the country. 

The North West Gendarmerie Legion is said to have been charged with unravelling every detail of what happened.

Reports hold that before the incident, the late Dr Ngong who worked closely with Otto, had suffered accusations from the latter. 

It is reported that the then Second Deputy Mayor had penned petitions against the deceased to the State Secretariat for Defense, SED, accusing the mayor of working with separatists.

The accusations, The Guardian Post gathered, poisoned the relationship between the two. Otto became one of the first suspects after the municipal authority was assassinated. He ended up being detained after months of grilling.

Before the April 15 ruling, the Head Teacher detained, reports hold, had long been freed. The others who were acquitted are said to have been transferred to prison, pending procedural engagements for their release. The matter had suffered several adjournments 

Relatives of those acquitted are also said to have lived the moments of the rulings. Most of them are said to have burst into jubilation, thanking God for the acquittal of their loved ones in the matter.

Media reports quote the Secretary General, Ntam Confidence, as having quipped after the ruling that: “God has vindicated me”.

To recall that the later Mayor Dr Ngong’s remains were transported under tight security after his brutal killing to Bamenda. It was again later ferried to a morgue in Yaounde.

He was buried on July 27, 2024, in Yoaunde. During the funeral, several officials, among them the North West Regional President of the United Councils and Cities of Cameroon, Denis Dang Awoh, also Mayor of Fundong Council, had appealed to authorities to ensure justice is served.

Dr Ngong’s successor, Alice Mbu, had also reportedly made the same call. 

The scholar and politician was first elected mayor, following the February 9, 2020, local elections.

He had been praised for his persistence to ensure the municipality recovered from the armed conflict in the two English-speaking Regions of the country.

On the day he was killed, he and others are said to have been assembling at the ceremonial ground of Belo, to celebrate the National Day.

The Dr Ngong is among at least three mayors who have died under troubling circumstances not unconnected to the armed conflict.

There is the case of the Mayor of Mamfe Council, Ojong Priestly, killed in an ambush in May 2020 and Nanje Kenneth Nanje of Ekondo Titi Council, murdered in a February 2022 attack. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3767 of Tuesday April 21, 2026