CUSTOMARY LAW TENURE SYSTEM IN CONTEMPORARY CAMEROON: A SOCIO-LEGAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The interest of this article is to review the socio-cultural and legal situation of tenure rights in customary communities, given that the recognition of customary interests as „real property‟ interests is upheld accordingly as an equitable status in modern-day land relations. Notably, the Cameroonian experience advances a multicultural model of political ordering and incorporation of traditional values into the fabric of the State, by maintaining customary tenures as a subordinate to the authority of the State as a parallel governance structure. Such values adopt a „corporate form‟, as the bases of local rights of ownership and possession of land and natural resources, though its enforceability is seriously wanting. The rationale, however, is on how individuals, groups and the State, with respect to land and natural resources, often co-exist within the same social context.