A Front View of Balondo-Bakonja

This book is a welcome addition to the growing body of cultural literacy in West Africa where school children only learn about European languages, cultures, and people. Hopefully, when its goal of cultural literacy is fully implemented, the situation will be reversed as West African Children of Balondo-bakonja origin will become real graduates of the Balondo-bakonja cultural educational system. Briefly, it is divided into two parts plus a preface which gives general preliminaries. The first part focuses on the geography of Balondo-bakonja: their location, weather and soil texture, occupation, and Land use in general. The second part details the migration of the Balondo-bakonja from the Congo to Akwa Akpa (Calabar, Nigeria) and from there to their present location in the resource-rich coastal south-west littoral region of Cameroon. There is also mention of how much land each community acquired as well as the complex social issues that led to the outbreak of both internal and external conflicts resulting in winners and losers. Overall, Aja Oro who is the author has done a great job by showing to the world how his people, the Balondo-bakonja, think, act, and function in their own cultural environment.