The Concept of 'States within a State' Admist Conflict and Peace Building Ventures in Bafut, Cameroon

Abstract

This study looks at the perception and manifestation of the concept of 'states' in African communities. A state, in African context, is an organisation of human beings connected by a system of relations. Within the states, different groups of people exist and different individuals have different roles to play. Some exercise special powers or authority, capable of giving command, which is obeyed by the people they rule. In the Bamenda Grassfields of Cameroon (present-day North West Region), these individuals are called fons and chiefs and they rule fondoms. In Westernised societies, they would be called kings. Sincecolonial period, government administrators refer to them as traditional rulers or natural rulers. Amongst these rulers are some who rule over what is commonly referred to as semi-autonomous polities within the fondoms. They are called sub-chiefs on grounds that colonial administrators came out with this appellation to differentiate the authority and position of a ruler from that of his subalterns. In Bafut this classification spark waves of wrangles and conflict between the fon and his subalterns.