Cameroon: Sultan Nabil Mbombo Njoya, new king of the Bamouns
The palace of the Sultan Roi des Bamouns in Foumban, Cameroon.
© Wikimedia common / Amcaja
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
Traditional leader of a community that claims two million souls, Nabil Mbombo Njoya was enthroned this Sunday, October 10, 2021. At 28, he succeeds his late father, Sultan Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya.
The latter was close to President Paul Biya, he had known him from his beginnings in politics.
Nabil Mbombo Njoya represents a new generation.
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Among the many children of the former king of Bamoun, Nabil Mbombo Njoya is the first son born after the enthronement
of the late sultan
.
Designated in his father's will, this choice was not a surprise according to the biographer, the former monarch.
To put on his new clothes as a traditional chief, Nabil Mbombo Njoya must leave his functions within the territorial administration.
Until then, he was responsible for legal affairs in the governorate of the southern region.
Very close to his father, he was brought up in the Bamoun tradition, educated at the American school in Yaoundé before studying in the United States and at the National School of Administration and the Judiciary of Cameroon.
He was appointed after an initiation conclave led by the notables of the kingdom and becomes at 29 years old, the twentieth in the line of Bamoun kings.
This powerful kingdom of western Cameroon which has some 2 million souls.
Will he be as influential as his father?
The late Sultan Ibrahim Mbombo Noya was a member of the CPDM political bureau from its inception, he was also a personal friend of President Paul Biya.
Renowned for his outspokenness, he had taken a position on subjects as sensitive as the conflict in the English-speaking west and after Biya, pleading for more decentralization and for better preparation for the alternation.
His son, Nabil Mbombo Njoya, on the other hand, has never campaigned in a party.
He is old enough to be the son or even the grandson of the Cameroonian president.
According to the late sultan's biographer, the advantage of the new monarch's less political involvement is that he can focus on Bamun affairs and the defense of culture and tradition.
The late Sultan King of Bamoun, Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya, (here in December 2014) was buried on Sunday October 10, 2021. © Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 Photokadaffi
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