Alleged misappropriation: Special Criminal Court clears Konye mayor, collaborators.

Judges at the Court are said to have arrived at the conclusion that there is no case against Mayor Musima, the Konye Council Municipal Treasurer, Muabe Richard Itoe; and Stores Accountant, Sakwe James Ngimani; in the evening hours of Wednesday, April 15, 2026.

The conclusion came close to a week after the trio was transferred from the South West Region, to the Yaounde Court on Thursday, April 9, 2026.  Musima, Muabe and Sakwe had since last Sunday been responding to questions from investigators at the Special Criminal Court, since their files were transferred to it.

Speaking to The Guardian Post yesterday, Mayor Musima said the investigators found nothing against him and his collaborators. 

Musima stated that they were never arrested but had been brought to the Special Criminal Court, in relation to investigations, based on the accusations that been levelled against them.

He stated that after reading through the files and seeing documents which they summited, officials of the court found nothing incriminating. 

A source close to the matter also claimed that at the level of the Special Criminal Court, judges were indifferent to several shortcomings in terms of investigations and procedures surrounding the matter.

To recall that the accusations first erupted against the leadership of Musima George Lobe, sometimes in 2024. 

The matter dragged on, spanning 2025, with several summons to the South West Gendarmerie Legion and crossing over into 2026, with the surprise turn of events on April 9, 2026, when the Mayor, Municipal Treasurer and Stores Accountant, showed up in Buea, to respond to findings.

Two former Council staff, Nanje Mbuki and Betoto Edward, whom Mayor Musima is said to have dismissed and councillors, Ndedi Bau Akama and Ndima Joseph Oyo, are said to have been at the origin of the accusations.

The quartet, we gathered, had written severally, claiming wrong doing in the management of the Council. 

One of their most recent allegations had bordered on the management of Additional Council Tax allocation for 2023, 2024 and 2025 among other claims.

The complaint is said to have blamed the mayor for owing over 15 months of workers’ salaries.

Long before the matter left the South West judicial and gendarmerie corridors to Yaounde, Mayor Musima had evoked the long delays in the payment of the tax allocation.

He had equally told reporters that the armed conflict in the North West and South West Regions long disrupted revenue collection across Konye municipality. 

Musima stated that at a time, the Council was forced to operate out of Konye. As at the close of 2024, he had said the council was going through financial difficulties, coupled with the delay in the State’s payment of the Additional Council Tax Allocation.

“…that is our plight which some people want to attribute to administrative management…,” he had said.

For the number of days, the mayor and his two collaborators showed up at the Special Criminal Court, his supporters blamed what unfolded on politics.

Some of them linked the accusations against the mayor to opponents battling to kick him out of the race for another mandate, when elections are organised next year.

Musima, who also heads the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, CPDM, party in Konye Subdivision, is serving his second term as mayor. He is believed to also be on course to seek a third term, anytime local elections are organised.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3763 of Friday April 17, 2026