HOW A MANKON PRINCE WAS EXECUTED BY BRITISH COLONIALISTS

ROYAL DYNASTY

Above is Fo Angwafo II of Mankon. He ruled right up to 1919 when he died (got missing) and was succeeded by his son Fo Ndefru III who is in the third picture.  I was not able to obtain the date on which Angwafo II acceded to the throne, but Ndefru III ruled till 1959 when he too "disappeared" and was succeeded by Fo Angwafo III, the current monarch who is in the top picture wielding a long stick as a symbol of power and authority. Prior to becoming Fon he was an agricultural officer with the Department of Agriculture. This was when our part of Cameroon was governed from Enugu (Nigeria) as part of the Eastern Region of Nigeria.

THE CRUX OF THE MATTER

However, the focus of this article is the hanging of a prince of Mankon during the reign of Angwafo II on the orders of the then British District Officer based in Bamenda. The publication entitled, `Focus on Nukwi Nu Fo Ndefru III: Mankon Cultural Festival 23<sup>rd</sup> to 31<sup>st</sup> December 1984 recounts the story thus:
“A serious influenza broke out in Bamenda between 1918 and 1919 and caused the death of several people including the District Officer. Many Mankon people died and Regent Fruba who had on his own assumed the name of Fomukong attributed it to witchcraft. On arrival in Mankon, the British had warned the people against the use of sasswood poison to detect witchcraft. Oral tradition in Mankon holds that during the period of the influenza (known in the Mankon dialect as tatu,) Regent Fruba went to D.O. Crawford (who had succeeded Podvin) and told him that the influenza was due to witchcraft and  that he was going to bring a doctor  to detect all the witches and wizards responsible.  Although the Divisional Officer refused, the Regent on his own brought a certain `medicine man` from Bambuluwe (Awing) to Mankon, for the purpose.
“Eyewitnesses (one of whom is still living today) say that the doctor mixed a pot of medicine which all suspects were expected to drink. But before the ceremony started, law enforcement agents suddenly appeared and arrested the Regent, the doctor and some councilors and retainers. Nobody in Mankon knows who reported the matter to the administration.


THE EXECUTION
“Regent Fruba and the others were tried and he and the doctor were sentenced to death. British colonial policy strictly forbade the killing of a Chief or his Regent without the approval of the Governor General in Lagos-Nigeria. Crawford therefore dispatched a letter to Lagos to seek the opinion of the Governor General.  Since the letter had to be taken to Lagos on foot, the reply did not come soon and only arrived a day after Regent Fuba and the doctor had already been hanged in early July 1919. The Governor General`s letter had ordered that the Regent and his men be set free but this unfortunately came too late.

COLONIAL FABRICATIONS
“On 11^th July 1919, the Divisional Officer who had ordered the killing of the Regent had this to say about the incident: `The acting Chief Fomukong and some of his headmen brought a sasswood man to his town (Mankon) because one of his headmen Michang said he had been accused by the people of being a witch. Fomukong was holding this trial by ordeal. The case was tried and Fomukong and the juju man executed and four others were sentenced to five years in prison with hard labour each… two hundred marks which the juju man had collected in fees was collected and paid as revenue.
“Eyewitness in Mankon said that the two hundred marks which Crawford claimed had been collected by the juju man was actually money which he Crawford had forced the Mankon people to pay as fine for refusing to come and see how their Regent was being killed. It is often not surprising in history to find politicians especially those with a military background to be very brutal over tribal matters. The killing of the Regent was a very brutal act and created tension not only between Crawford and the Mankon people; it greatly displeased the Governor General`”.
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FOOTNOTE
The sub titles are ours.
The publication form which this story was obtained was compiled and edited by Yalla Eballa and Emmanuel Aloangamo Aka.