Vacancy due to Death:

Nanji Kenneth Ene Takes Over as New Mayor of Ekondo-Titi

By Doh Bertrand Nua in Kumba

Councilors of Ekondo-Titi council in Ndian Division of the Southwest Region have elected Nanji Kenneth Ene as their new Mayor few weeks after the death of the former Mayor, Mbongo Alfred.

            Nanji Kenneth was formerly the First Deputy Mayor of the council. He was crowned as the new Mayor at a special council session organized to elect a new team to run the council, on 29 March 2018. The session which was supervised by Ndian SDO, Etta Mbokaya Ashu, also saw the former second deputy Mayor, Utam Margaret emerge as the first deputy Mayor, while Njio Clement emerged as the second deputy.

            Before the dead of Mayor Mbongo Alfred, tension had already started mounting as to who was going to replace him as Mayor. Sources said the likes of councilor Itoe William and Mesembe James (a former Mayor) had since been positioning themselves to take over the council after the forthcoming municipal elections.

            However, it should be here that political power sharers I Ekondo-Titi made up of Balues and Balondos had long agreed that when a Mayor is from Balue then the lone parliamentary seat goes to a Balondo. However, this political agreement wasn’t respected in the present election as we gathered that the position of the current Mayor was to go to the Balondos but the Balues argued that they wanted to finish the term of office left by their brother.

            We learnt the stage for the election of the new team to continue with the affairs of the council was set during the senatorial elections as the divided factions of the councilors were reconciled by some CPDM heavyweights of the area.

            It should be recalled that the late Mayor was buried in Kumba after elements of the ‘Ambazonia Defense Force’, ADF blocked circulation of vehicles along the Kumba-Mbonge-Ekondo-Titi road on Friday 16 March 2018 leaving mourners stranded in Ekono-Titi and Kumba. The family had no other option than to bury the late Mayor’s body in Kumba.

            Nanji Kenneth Ene is a graduate in Business Management from the Calabar Politechnic, Nigeria.