I, Dr. Aja Oro, a Balondo scholar from the Esunga Motonda Royal Family in Kumbe and Lobe as well as the Obanandongo Royal Family in Ekondo-Enene is the first Balondo proper to bag a PhD with three Masters’ degrees from prestigious American Universities -Temple university [Philadelphia] and Howard university [Washington DC].
I am retired from Maryland State government as a manager andas Adjunct professor with the Sojourner Douglass College [Baltimore]. However, I am currently employed as a psychotherapist/ Diagnostician at the ARK of DC Mental health/Behavioral Services grossing an annual salary close to forty million francs CFA.My net worth previously included 200 acres of land in Ekondo-Enene of which 100 acres comprised a palm plantation that I sold due to poor management.
I created the Balondo Cultural Heritage in Laurel, Maryland in 2014 to promote cultural literacy among Balondo youth and elders. Furthermore, it was through this organization that I successfully reconnected our Balondo people in Cameroon with their Efut Balondo siblings in Calabar, who are descendants of Balondo ancestors, who declined to embark on a Second Voyage to the coastal southwest littoral region of Cameroon. Obviously, as the only Balondo siblings in this world, Balondo ancestors never had any other relatives or shared any cultural ties with the Balue, Bakundu, Batanga, Bima, Ekombe, and Ngolo, whose common ancestor is said to be Ngoe. In 1973, these natives banded together in Kumba to form a Ngoe clan called Oroko.
Obanandong 1 of Ekondo-Nene
Thus, in a move to remove what seemed to have become a benign tumor, they officially denounced the Oroko group during their Enlarged Executive Meeting of BACUDA in Buea on the 26th of April 2022. And to prove that they were very serious, they sent an emissary on June 4th, 2022, to the gathering of the Oroko Language Committee to inform them that they were no longer going to join them to work on projects labelled Oroko unless they were labelled Ndian division projects.
Moving along, it is not unusual for one or two individuals in any community to foolishly resist or oppose “constitutional amendments” aimed at introducing change for the greater good of all its members. Chief Gerald Nasako is one such individual, who for over four decades, had been accustomed to throwing a monkey wrench into the wheel of Balondo societal progress, like he did again withthe two recent legislative decisions taken by the people on April 26th and June 4th respectively. More so, not only did he oppose the legislations, but he also has deliberately continued to encourage the Oroko group to disregard the will of his people.
Most Balondo people were appalled at his disrespectful and arrogant behaviour. Ironically, eventhough they did not appreciate his contemptuous behaviour, they never reprimanded him. But I did not see things the same way which explains why I decided to publish the matter in the Guardian Post newspaper in August the 17th, 2022 – alleging that Chief Gerald Nasako’s disloyalty to his people stemmed from the fact that his sense of ethnic group membership, evaluation, and salience of his membership as a Morondo was broken because he was born and bred in the Oroko village of Mbonge-Ngbandi-wherein he was socialized. It was therefore my honest opinion that since he had acquired the basic habits, attitudes, and mode of life of an embracing culture [Mbonge-Ngbandi] he was “Oroko not Balondo”.
Quite unexpectedly, the said article generated a whirlwind of spiraling emotional reactions. While the majority of Balondo supported me, the Lobe youth members of the Lobe village council and a few members of Balondo Youth Development Association [both from the peasant class] equally put out an article in the Guardian Post of August 18, 2022 in which they maliciously described me as an anarchist, who has sown the seeds of rancour and division among the Balondo whose institutions, especially the chieftaincy, I did not seem to regard as worth my ‘cup of tea’. Unfortunately, for them, their lies and groundless character assassination of me backfired on them, given that all Balondo people stood by me for nipping in the bud the unnecessary wanton endangerment of the Balondo society by Chief Nasako, his cronies, and others. See below some cases made on my behalfmy behalf:
“…Well said but AJA is a Balondo man. Nobody can take that away from him. There are two school of thoughts here. Nobody can tell if they have a personal problem or not. Maybe as a researcher, he came out with something he alone can explain. But individually, I cannot just dismiss his idea and even go to the extent of abusing and insulting him. Two wrongs cannot make a right. He is our Dr. Any Balondo man should be proud of having a Dr. like him. Afterall, all we have is a few of them. His ideas about OROKO and BALONDO should not penalize him or take away his Balondo roots. I am from Boa Balondo and know that Chief is from Boa and Lobe. If he says any to the contrary, it is BACUDA to inform him of his excesses. But I think personally that his write ups may not be politically motivated because he has never done politics and has never written any political write-up to the best of my knowledge. All his write-ups are cultural and colonial migration”. BACUDA, BYDA, and Balondo elites must sit and dialogue with him to hear his own version of the story”—Joseph Ndoh.
“Read the newspaper clip… now I fully understand your cause for your people which I sincerely find worthy! Keep it up, the ancestors are with you to ensure truth and justice based on historical facts, cultural norms and values and irrefutable daily values are upheld!”—Eden Paper.
In the final analysis, I will like to counsel the few confused Balondo ‘Enemies of Progress’ to refrain from baseless accusations and heinous condemnations of all well-meaning Balondo persons of my caliber in that it will cause unnecessary frictions tantamount to destabilizing this great civilization of ours. I thank you.