At General Assembly: SODELCO Indicts MBOSCUDA For Misrepresenting Fulani Community

- Says Fulanis are not indigenous nor marginalized race

- Mbororo is a specie of cattle not human race

The general assembly of Ardos Union held at the Bamenda congress hall on September 7, 2012 to celebrate its achievements and map out strategies to forge ahead. In his keynote address to a well over 30 Ardos and invitees at the assembly, the Secretary General of the Ardos’ Union cum President of SODELCO, Alhadji Youguda Buba, opined that the raison d’être of the general assembly was to celebrate their achievements as well as share their problems for the common good of the Fulani community. He said the Ardos’ union as well as SODELCO has come a long way to fight for the rights and progress of the Fulanis and most importantly for peace, unity and development to reign within the Fulani community and Cameroon as a whole.

Alhadji Youguda stressed that the Ardos also came together most importantly to brainstorm on the way forward for their organization and putting in place a plan of action and check against “a group of unscrupulous individuals or organization scheming to destabilize the unity and peace of our organization which is so much cherished by the Fulanis as the only organization that can assemble them together for the common good of all”. He observed that the Ardos’ union and SODELCO unlike other Fulani organizations misleading the Fulanis, Cameroon and the international community, stand tall as the only authentic and most reliable Fulani organization. He hoped that after the brainstorming, the members were going to leave the assembly smiling that finally, the moves by some unscrupulous Fulanis and groups have been frustrated with the promoters nipped in the bud.

Creating awareness to the international community and Cameroon government in particular about the Fulani community, the Vice National President, Abdel Aziz Hamidou, corrected that in 1987, a group of Fulanis created an organization in Bamenda dubbed “Fulani Social Association” and in 1991, another Fulani brothers came up with another group called “Mbororo Development Association” and today, “Mbororo Social, Cultural and Development Association - MBOSCUDA” for their selfish purpose.

Hear him: “There’s no race in the world called Mbororo. Mbororo is rather the species of cattle not human beings”. He said the MBOSCUDA promoters did this deliberately to create a false impression to the international community that they are marginalized, indigenous population like the Bakas of the East Region so as to attract funding from the international community for their individual interest not even for the Fulanis.

Abdel Aziz questioned why MBOSCUDA claims that Mbororos (Fulanis) are marginalized in Cameroon when the Technical Adviser at the Presidency is MBOSCUDA National President, a Fulani, Galga Haman, was a Minister, several Fulani people now in the army, others nurses and teachers in the civil service among others.

According to Abdel Aziz, MBOSCUDA is not helping Cameroon government one bid, given that it’s creating an impression in the international community that the indigenous people of Cameroon like Mbororos (Fulanis) and the Bakas are marginalized, whereas they all enjoy like every Cameroonian from the services Cameroon government offers. “The government has opened schools in all the nooks and crannies of this country including hospitals etc. Let MBOSCUDA tell Cameroonians whether their children have for once been chased out of any school or whether any Fulani has been denied access to any hospital because of his Fulani race. So it’s because they blindfold the international community that they attract funding from the donors for their individual selves”. He said because of their lies telling, most international organizations like Plan-Cameroon, ILO and lot more, have continuously been spending on MBOSCUDA members every other year.

Abdel Aziz disclosed that they (Fulanis) have started telling the international community the truth about the Fulani race of Cameroon, reason why MBOSCUDA appears to be dormant this time. “Recently, I frustrated FCFA 600 million which an international organization would have sent to MBOSCUDA for the construction of a veterinary school after telling them the truth that we have several veterinary schools in the country”. He said with SODELCO, over 700 cattle is kept to give to Fulani communities to assist them raise income while the youths are equally empowered economically and others sent to school with no foreign funding like MBOSCUDA; all thanks to SODELCO cum Ardos’ Patron, Alhadji Baba Danpullo, who has always been by the Fulanis to give them the necessary support.

Calling them scammers, Abdel Aziz regretted that MBOSCUDA claims that over 4000 Fulanis are evicted from their grazing land when it’s all fake and giving Cameroon a bad name. He said there are about 86 Ardos in Cameroon and 46 in the North West Region alone. Out of the 46 Ardos in the North West, 30 answered present at the September 7, 2012 Ardos union general assembly. “So you can see that MBOSCUDA does not work with their chiefs”.

In his closing remarks, the representative of the SDO for Mezam, Chemuta Samuel who raised eyebrows over the poor relationship existing between SODELCO and Ardos’ union on the other hand, and MBOSCUDA, noted that all the organizations have been legalized by the government, reason why all of them hold their meetings without any obstruction from the administration or the police. But he said it would be criminal where one of the organizations is misrepresenting all the Fulanis and enjoying certain rights or privileges that the entire Fulanis are entitled to.