‘Serves him right’: Cameroonians celebrate seizure of Danpullo’s assets in SA. But why?

By Hans Ngala

After CNA ran a story earlier today about the seizure and liquidation of Baba Danpullo’s assets in South Africa by First National Bank (FNB), the reaction from most CNA readers was bizarre – not in a good way though. They were rejoicing that the business mogul was getting a taste of his own medicine.
A Facebook user commented:
“Danpullo is a notorious law breaker who wanted to use his ill-gotten wealth and influence to evade accountability in South Africa. However, South Africa isn’t a Banana Republic like Cameroun where the minister determines what law should affect who and at what time. The thief has been handed down his lessons and asked to vacate. What is the source of Danpullo’s money? Thieves”.
Another user wrote:
“Danpullo himself needs cleansing. His own house is not happy with him, from his village Kom to Babanki, to Ndu, to Tole, to Esu. You cannot cause people to suffer in your family and expect to enjoy elsewhere. Now he expects us to sympathise with him, with our mothers’ farms that he seized”.
While yet another reader simply wrote “Serves him right”.

The list of jubilant comments could go on forever but at the heart of all these jubilant utterances is the fact that Danpullo (a close ally of long-time president, Paul Biya and his ruling CPDM party) has a reputation that precedes him in land seizures back at home.
Ordinary Cameroonians who know of Danpullo’s actions or have been affected by them, are therefore seeing a case of karma simply taking effect.
Some have accused Danpullo of using his wealth and political clout to mistreat people and seize their lands. A glaring case is his clashes with the Mbororo people (a semi-nomadic peoples that live in the Sahel region of West Africa including Cameroon).
According to the New Humanitarian “They were given rights over pasturelands in the mountains of Northwest Province by the British colonial government after moving into the lush region from the north of the country in the 17th century. However, in 1986, a commercial ranch was established in Ndawara, 70km east of the provincial capital Bamenda. This signalled the start of a bitter and often violent dispute between its owner Alhadji Baba Ahmadou Danpullo and the Mbororo herders”. Danpullo claimed that the herders had damaged his property and slandered his name.
The New Humanitarian reported that in an effort to solve the decades-long conflict, a delegate from the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries was sent to Ndawara and reported a few days later that “during expansions of the ranch, several Fulani families have been displaced and moved along with thousands of cattle. The secretive manner of the management of this ranch has left us unable to have facts and figures on activities that go on there”, the publication quoted the official as saying.
The delegate is reported to have travelled around the perimeter of the ranch on horseback and found that Danpullo had encroached “two to three km into the communal grazing lands”.
CNA cannot verify claims that Danpullo also used his wealth to unlawfully chase away legitimate landowners in Ndu and other locations in the SW of the country.
Danopullo is ranked as the wealthiest man in Francophone Africa and reportedly travels on a diplomatic passport, not an ordinary one.
Valued at over 900 billion Dollars in according to some estimates, his major investments are in the agri-business sector, preferring to spend most of his time in his ranch in Ndawara in the Northwest of Cameroon where he personally manages the business, while discreetly managing his investments in South Africa which have recently come under the radar from FNB bank who claim that the billionaire defaulted on his loan repayments.