Indigenous Peoples and the Singular Socio-Political Trajectory of the Mbororo in Ngaoui Subdivision (Cameroon)

Abstract

This study concerns the Mbororo of Ngaoui Subdivision (Cameroon). And for some good reasons: unlike those of Chad, Central African Republic (CAR) or certain regions of Cameroon such as the West, the Far North, the North and the East, where they constitute a vulnerable, dominated and marginalized group, the Mbororo of Ngaoui have succeeded in establishing themselves as a dominant group. This is due to their sedentarization caused by the boom in the cattle market, and accelerated by cross-border crimes in the 1970s. This sedentarization takes place through the diversification of their economic activities, openness to Christianity and access to health and educational infrastructures on one hand, and the relative possession of traditional power and above all, their central position in local politics on the other hand. By relying on the theory of the coloniality of power and empirical data collected in the localities where the Mbororos are highly established and their herds which are Djohong and Ngaoui. This contribution aims at analysing the singular socio-political trajectory of this Fulani fraction which does not respond to the definitional and identifying criteria enshrined in the international and Cameroonian conceptions, which makes them, indigenous, marginal and vulnerable populations respectively.