This article exposes the true colours of Hon. Ngalle Etongo in the conduct of his duties as the Bamusso subdivision Member of Parliament.Bamusso is a political entity that encompasses the entire southern Balondo mainland and its ancient fishing ports of Betika, Isangele, and Idabato etc.
The behavior under scrutiny was manifestedwhen in a fit of fury, he had reacted angrily to an accurate historical rendition of Bamusso being a Boa balondo “Dibondo” or fishing port. Hon. Ngalle is part Boa-balondo [mother] and part Bakolle [ father]. As a child of both worlds, it was expected of him to adopt a neutral posture not an arbitrarily biased one, which in this context, showshow he is more supportive of his father’s lineage than his mother’s.
In proceeding, “What was the matter then with the narrative that could have triggered so much bitterness in him up to the extent that he could not control his temper?”“Could it have been that he could not bear learning for the first time in his life that his ‘beloved’Bamusso Island called ‘Bosama’ in Balondo was the maritime property of the Boa Balondo people in ancient times not the Bakoles’, the indigenous Bamusso fishing tribes’ people, who musthave instilledin him the false idea that it belonged to them?”
Notwithstanding his rage, both the Boa-balondo Oral accounts and the Reverend Father Gluth’s which he recorded in his unpublished manuscript, “Balondo ba Mbenge”upheld the same point of view that“The original owner of the Island was Boa balondo not Bakole [ Bamusso]”.
To ‘piggyback’ on both accounts;the Bakole, a riverine tribe from an unknownregion occupied the Boa Island known presently as Bamusso in about the 1820s. The marauders probably thought it was a “No Man’s Land”. Sadly, it was not because when King Afo of Boa heard about their illegal occupation of his fishing port, he immediately declared war against them and successfully defeated them. The surviving Bakoles not having anywhere else to go, deemed it wise to sign a treaty with the King.
As a result, they agreed to pay monthly royalties which consisted initially of damsels followed by constant supply of fish and other food items. The truce was subsequently discontinued in the colonial and post-colonial Cameroonian government eras. Frankly, there is no other version of this history that is known to exist in any other place.
When, therefore, this brief history of Boa and Bamusso was posted on November 12th, 2022, in the BACUDA [ Balondo General] forum, Hon. Ngalle who is also a member, given that his mother allegedly comes from Boa, reacted swiftly not with any alternative more realistic version but with blind rage unworthy of a Member of Parliament representing both constituencies. Undoubtedly, had he voiced that the story was not verifiable and stopped there, the author would have politely asked him to produce the accurate version to help “fix the problem”.
He did not;instead, he went on the offensive by baselessly attacking the author, his family, and entire lineage, whose image and/or existential reality he shamelessly twisted, distorted, and shredded into smithereens, irrespective of the fact that the forum, on which he was desecrating a noble person from a royal Balondo family, comprised many members of his constituency, as well as a many other balondo people, who already appreciatedthe authorfor his great role as a community leader and a positive social role model. Based on that fact, it appeared as if his efforts to distort and completely render the author’s ancestry and good works tabula rasa wasegotistically motivatedsince his “Papa’s land”was supposedly under siege and needed to be rescued at all costs even at the expense of “Mama’s” land. For the benefit of the doubt, the graphic nature of his nefarious attacks on the author is hereby cited below:
“Aja you are getting into this your excesses again. I remind you that I am a Balondo child materially and Bamusso paternaly…May I remind you that you to the Ijaw in Ngeria. That is where your father comes from. Your mother who is related to the Oro’s cursed you when you abandoned her so you can not even claim any material relationship with the Balondo’s. your brothers (the Aja’s are in a fishing port called New Bamusso. I can help you identify them, you bastard. Foran Ijaw son to refer to a fishing port as ‘smelly’ tells you the level of such a son good day”. He would go on to say:
“You excel in rantings because of your debased mentality. You know I do not have time for that. I am a busy man impacting the lives of Cameroonians. You have said you will take over Bamusso and I see you do not have the capacity to do that you should first of all take care of your filthy self). Let us be judged from what we have said”.
If one was not told that the outburst was exhibited by a Member of Parliament in the Republic of Cameroon, one would not have known. One would have thought that such derogatory and overly malicious slander and/or character assassination of a person never known before to the assailant [ MP] was made up stuff, cooked up by an illiterate “Njamba Njamba” [ vegetable] seller in Muea Market, Buea-the kind of quarrel and attendant insults that is rife in that kind of environment. More importantly, this undeniable attestation is bolstered by the poor grammar or handling of the English language displayed by the Honorable from Bamusso. As is obvious, his disparage character assassination of the author of the said write up was unnecessary, naïve, and disgraceful since the person he is attacking is not a politician nor did he ever envisage running for political office. Above all, a “Man of The People” should not be so condescending but ratherpolite, respectful, and diplomatic regardless of the circumstances. What a shame!
Dr. Aja Oro [ Balondo scholar, USA].
Obanandongo1 of Ekondo-Enene.
+1 240 714 9912
ajaoro200@yahoo.com