Gov’t should go beyond revoking grabbed CDC land!.

As it emerged last week from government, the destroyers were using fake authorisation documents to carry out their land grabbing operation in the name of Allah.

On September 11, 2026, the Minister of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure, signed Order No. 03472/A/MINDCAF/SG/D1/D12/DM, bearing on the cancellation of Orders No.00633/A/MINDCAF/SG/D1/D 12/ of 21 March, 2025, and No.00605/Y.7/MINDCAF/SG/D6/ S200/S230, of February 19, 2026; authorising the lease and retrocession of State-owned land to the Muslim Community in Mutengene. 

Minister Eyebe Ayissi referenced letter No. B1621/SG/PR, of the Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic of September 7, 2026, denouncing the nature of fake documents that had been submitted to trigger decisions necessitating the authorisation of the land retrocession.

Article I of the minister’s September 11, 2026 cancellation order notes that: “It is hereby noted that, in accordance with Correspondence No. B1621/SG/PR of September 7, 2026, from the Minister of State, Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic, the documents presented as letters No. B106/SG/PR/ of February 20, 2024, No. A184/PR/SG of May 16, 2024 and No. 331/CF/SG/PR of May 13, 2026, which served as the basis for the drafting of Orders No. 00633/A/MINDCAF/SG/D1/D12 and No. 00634/A/MINDCAF/SG/D1/D12 of March 21, 2025 and No. 00605/Y.7/MINDCAF/SG/D6/S200/S230 of February 19, 2026, authorising the transfer of State-owned plots and the granting of a 35-year long-term lease to the Muslim Community of Mutengene on land belonging to the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, with areas of 07ha 36a 58ca and 36ha 99a 02ca in Ombe on the one hand, and 15ha 00a 05ca in Bulu Likumba on the other, are forged.”

Article 2 (1) of the Ministerial Order states that the actions emanating from the cancelled orders are nullified. Eyebe Ayissi, in Article 2 (2) wrote: “…it follows that the aforementioned plots regain their natural status.”

Article 3 of the Order instructs the Director of Lands, the Senior Divisional Officer, SDO of Fako and the Divisional Delegate of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure of Fako Division, to take dispositions in line with the cancellation.

Consequently, MINDCAF has formally withdrawn the three previous Administrative Orders, “with all legal consequences.”

The Guardian Post congratulates the Minister of State, Secretary General at the Presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh and his peer at Land Tenure, Eyebe Ayissi, for the decision to ensure republican institutions are respected.

We are also delighted to note that the cancelation is without prejudice to “all legal consequences.” It is clear that presenting forged documents to destroy crops, appropriate CDC land and sell to individuals in the name of Allah is a serious offense.

And even when the CDC, using lawyers and its own security to argue that the destruction was based on a false premise, some administrative authorities are alleged to have ordered troops to protect the perpetrators.

Thanks to peaceful protests by Fako political, traditional, civil society, elite, and the media, the land has been protected.   

But the dubious deed has been done. Destroying government property and rendering so many employees out of work is a serious matter that challenges the authority of the State from the summit.

They should be held to accountability, with a public judicial investigation opened to expose and sanction the ringleaders and those who were using their government offices to protect them. 

Many of the agents were brandishing allocation letters to potential buyers. It is not difficult to identify the perpetrators and their agents.         Who presented the fake documents used for the criminal operation?

Who gave orders for troops to protect the chainsaw operators who carried out the destruction, which the CDC has estimated at over 75 million FCFA?

When the CDC management argued that the person posing as Muslim leader in Mutengene, was impersonating, why did the administration not intervene to establish the right leader who had written to the CDC and the Prime Minister, copies of which are in the media, to say Muslims in Mutengene had not applied for any land?

Why, in the first place, should Muslims in Mutengene, said to be “less than 500 people,” have such free land when other religious bodies in the same town with thousands of followers, are not being offered the same free land? 

Who are those who bought the land and who were selling it before they invaded the one in Esuke?

Those who should answer the questions are known and their answers should expose the suspects and unmask their masters who might have been pulling the strings of destruction from their offices.

It is time the Minister of State, Secretary General at the Presidency, who has a delegation of the presidential signature and his name is being smeared with forgery to grab CDC land, to order a judicial investigation with the arrest of all suspects. 

Those implicated should be made to pay the corporation for the crops destroyed, while those who secured CDC land through forgery, should be arm-twisted to immediately surrender the said land to the Corporation and compensation for the destruction paid.

CDC is a patrimony of the people of the South West and North West Regions, which has benefited numerous people, not only by providing jobs, but educational and medical facilities. 

It is a government enterprise, and to allow individuals to destroy it with impunity without being punished, would tantamount to encouraging the reign of “anarchy,” which Sophocles, a famous ancient Greek playwright says is "the greatest evil."

President Paul Biya, in a social media post on September 5 last year, emphasised that: “We live in a State in which the rule of law obtains. The State is a permanent reality which stands above personal and regional interests. The State guarantees peace. And peace is the most cherished possession.”

But for the magnanimity of the Fako people and the restraint from the CDC management, there would have been a breach of public peace during the destruction.

At The Guardian Post, we stand unshakable on our opinion that Yaounde must prove in action that Cameroon is a State of law, by ordering immediate judicial investigation into the forgery, used of troops to protect destruction of CDC crops and compensation paid.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3913 of Friday September 18, 2026