Land Grabbing and Conflict in the North West Region of Cameroon

In Cameroon, conflicts emerging from land ownership and boundary discrepancies have reached record heights with the North West Region serving as the theatre of land and boundary conflicts. These conflicts are not just rampant, but have taken shifting positions, making the much-cherished desire for peaceful cohabitation a far-fetched possibility. As this book shows, the ordinances of the 1970s which stopped traditional communities from making claims of ownership of land, the unwillingness of the traditional elite to understand and accept the arbitrary colonial imposed boundaries, and the dubious role played by those in authority in an attempt to solve or identify the root causes of these conflicts constituted the bed rock for the emergence of multi-dimensional problems. This book argues that conflicts in the North West Region have been promoted by the colonial factor, the authorities’ insistence on focusing on the consequences rather than on the deep causes, land laws, administrative orders and formally made arrangements. It argues very strongly that conflicts in the North West Region have become so protracted that solving them has been an uphill task.