Part Two:Towards a Disintegration of the OROKO Tribe

The OROKO are a Divided People....I pondered hard over this issue for a longtime and with lots of tears in my eyes as many sad events came to mind, both past and present like the Balondo claiming not to be Oroko pushing the Lower Balue people to request for their own subdivision, the Bakundu People fighting with the Mbonge and pushing the Bakundu people to request for their own subdivision with headquarters in Bombe, the pipe-borne water supply debacle between Big Nganjo,Small Nganjo and Mabonji Bakundu or the Pondo Balue people refusing bulldozers from digging the road to Bisoro Balue.

I entered into deep thought while thinking about the damage that this reality does to our progress and for some reason I remembered a story.

I was boasting to a colleague about the grandeur of the Oroko and our Unity.This i supported with pictures of our cohesion taken during the Bana ba Oroko meeting of 2012 in Kumba and that was the beginning of a moment I will never forget. She burst into fiery laughter and clapped her hands with teary eyes. “Do you know how many pressure groups, chieftaincy diputes, boundary wars and backbiting are within the Oroko as we speak? Do you know how many Oroko children are not in school? What unity do you people have?Is Kumba an Oroko town?Why do you always hold Oroko meetings in Kumba?Can't you hold Oroko meetings in Konye, Mbonge, Bole, Isangele or Toko?Don't these towns have the same facilities as offered by Kumba?If they don't, what have you the Orokos done to avert the situation?Nonsense!” She fired these questions at me and not being able to contain herself after having heard what seemed like the most absurd thing I had ever said or pictures i have ever taken, she continued “Abeg, let me go home before we fight but remember you are not more Oroko than i am'.

What she asked me is what has since plagued me and it is what I ask you today. “Why are we the Oroko so divided?What has become of the loving fraternity we enjoyed in yester-years as battoh ba oroko?

I vividly remember those days as students of GSS (grammar school) Ekondo Titi when we danced to the GLORY of the Oroko every 11th February and how we admired the Oroko Students Association (OSA).I recall the rural council pickups and tippers as we crammed into them just to be part of either the December AGM or July/August cultural weeks, the emotions, the fun, culture and sagesse of the host villages.The swimming in the local village streams,the gala nites, the traditional dances, the clean-up campaigns, the football matches OSA versus the host village and the excursions to a selected neighbouring village.

But as other schools came,the monopoly of GHS and SAR Mundemba, GSS Ekondo Titi were lost and with it the Oroko cohesion, fraternity and congruence.We all had been used to converging on one spot and were able to define and broker our identity but with educational, administrative and political dichotomy, came our divergence, incongruity and division of the mighty Orokos. This instability has been in one way triggered by political barons and baronesses in their quest for representative positions or our so called 'intellectual lot' who see themselves as the liberators and messiahs or historical Oroko pathway/lineage libraries.

Consequentially, the Mbonge parliamentarian or Senator, doesn't defend the interests of the Oroko but that of the Mbonge clan especially the Lower Mbonge he hails from;Chief Justice doesn't defend the interest of the Oroko people but that of his native Balue, Barombi or Balondo; Another amazing example is when a sango Oroko DO could not see any reason to pacify a boundary dispute between a Balue Chief and a Mbonge village until he was taken to court; that an Oroko Manager doesn't see the importance of defending his fellow kinsmen apart from those of his native Batanga; that an Oroko principal of an Oroko high school refuses to attend an Oroko students association meeting but attends and is even a matron of her native Mbonge all students association dubbed Mboasa are very severe cases portraying the magnitude of our Oroko new found or contemporary incongruity. Many instances can also be cited where preferential treatment is given to a clan member to the detriment of a tribal member but i rest my case.

My question is,what has become of the Oroko virtue?Where are we heading to?Are we heading towards the disintegration of the Oroko or can we still catch up?Because looking back at when we used to have solely the Oroko meetings or Oroko students association OSA, there was harmony,joy and the sense of belonging.Now adays, the field scenarios are different with factions from each clan, village factions and pressure groups. There exists little or no Oroko meetings within and without Cameroon.What we do have are Mbonge, Balondo, Ngolo, Bakundu, Balue, Ekombe, Barombi etc etc and such student groups as MBOASA, BYDA, BASA,NUBASA, NASU, BAYA and you name the rest. These all began as small factions from mighty OSA and have grown into mother branches within our college campuses and overseas even threatening the very existence of the Oroko cohesion dynamics.

It is time,we regretted the setbacks these dichotomous appendages have caused us, the retardation and backwardness.We occupy the entire NDIAN Division and 90% of MEME Division, endowed with all complex brains, talents and natural resources but where are we,what are we,who are we,how are we and where are we going to?We have a painful past,a doubtful presence and an uncertain or unknown future.So let's stand up as one man for the interests of BANA BA OROKO.