Colbert Gwain | The Muteff Factor
A story is being told of the young man in Muteff village perched on the Ijim hills near Abuh in Fundong Subdivision of Cameroon's North West Region who returned from the coast under pressure to perform an ancestral rite, with raffia wine being the key item demanded by the tradition.
But when he arrived in the village, he encountered a problem bigger than the one he had originally come to solve: the complete absence of raffia wine both in Muteff and nearby Achain village that used to act as backup.
Years of unsustainable exploitation had taken their toll. Raffia bushes had been cleared for farms and buildings, while others were harvested without adequate regeneration. A resource that had once been abundant had gradually become scarce.
Faced with the pathetic situation, the elders were therefore confronted with an unusual dilemma. The ancestral rite could not simply be abandoned, yet the traditional requirement of raffia wine could not be met. They improvised, symbolically using water in lieu of the required raffia wine.
That Muteff story offers a powerful backdrop to the intervention of Bafut/Tubah Member of Parliament, Hon. Agho Oliver, who on August 25, 2026, gifted more than 50 carefully selected raffia bush farmers and tappers while challenging them to protect the wetlands that sustain their livelihoods and join the fight against climate change.
The ceremony, held at the premises of the Divisional Delegation of Agriculture and Rural Development for Mezam Division, brought together beneficiaries from Bafut, Bambui, Bambili and the two Babankis.
They received rain boots, raincoats, cutlasses and financial support — practical assistance for people whose work takes them into wet, bushy and sometimes hazardous terrain.
But the gesture was deeply personal for Hon. Agho Oliver.
Explaining his concern for what he described as an often forgotten and overlooked class of resource persons, the MP recalled that, as a child, he accompanied his father in tapping and vending raffia wine. The proceeds from that activity helped him go through elementary education.
Raffia tapping, therefore, is not an occupation he encountered from a distance. It is part of his own life story and of the economic foundation that helped shape his future.
His concern has also been reinforced by a recent incident involving one of his brothers in the village, who was bitten by a snake while working in the raffia bush because he was not wearing protective gear.
The rain boots and raincoats consequently represent more than gifts. They respond to a real occupational hazard and underscore the need to make the work safer for those who provide a product so deeply woven into community life.
From Every Compound to a Threatened Resource
Hon Agho Oliver's intervention comes at a time when the raffia resource is under growing pressure.
In the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, virtually every compound in rural Bafut and Tubah — and, by extension, much of the Grassfields of Cameroon — had a raffia bush either adjacent to the compound or in a distant wetland.
Population growth, uncontrolled habitation, conversion of wetlands into farms and building sites, bush fires and other forms of environmental destruction have radically altered that landscape. A resource once taken almost for granted is increasingly difficult to find. The consequences are economic, environmental and cultural.
Raffia wetlands help regulate water, support biodiversity, protect soils and store carbon. Their destruction therefore threatens not only the livelihoods of tappers but also the ecological resilience of communities.
This is why Agho Oliver's message goes beyond assistance: the people who earn from raffia must become its protectors.
The MP has promised that his support will continue, including providing raffia seedlings for regeneration and clean containers for preserving the wine. He has also committed to deeper reflection and research into the raffia wine value chain, potentially opening discussions around improved production, hygiene, preservation, packaging, marketing and value addition.
The underlying proposition is straightforward: environmental protection is not an obstacle to the raffia business; it is a condition for its survival.
Sustainable tapping, regeneration of depleted stands, protection of young palms, prevention of bush fires and avoidance of unnecessary destruction can help ensure that future generations inherit what previous generations once considered abundant.
For the more than 50 beneficiaries from Bafut, Bambui, Bambili and the two Babankis, therefore, Hon. Agho Oliver's gifts carry a larger social contract:
Harvest from the raffia bush, but do not destroy it. Earn from the wetlands, but protect them. And make a living from nature without making nature's disappearance the price of that livelihood.
Muteff has already demonstrated what happens when that balance is lost.
A community may improvise when its raffia wine disappears, but the lingering incompleteness of that substitution is a reminder that some resources are valuable not only because they sustain livelihoods, but because they sustain identity itself.
It should be recalled that Hon. Agho Oliver is not making his first interventions in his constituency. Since entering Parliament in 2020, he has been on all fronts in an attempt to improve the livelihoods of his constituents. He is also one of the few Members of Parliament who regularly visits his constituency or ensures that his constituents hear from him at least once a month, a practice he has maintained since entering Parliament.
Beyond his regular interventions on the floor of Parliament, he has, each year, contributed to sending less privileged students in his constituency back to school, from the primary to the tertiary level. Back in 2020, he distributed roofing sheets and other building materials to residents whose homes were destroyed in the course of the raging conflict, provided essential medication worth XAF 30 million to the Bafut Health District, and has consistently provided agricultural inputs and planting seeds to farmers in his constituency. He has also remained actively engaged in supporting community development initiatives in most of the villages that make up his Bafut/Tubah Constituency.
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