The North West’s iconic fabric Toghu has taken centre stage at the North West Economic Forum this time not on a runway, but in the heart of high-level conversations on regional revival. Worn with pride, admired for its royal heritage and outstanding embroidery, Toghu has been a rallying point for most participants.
Participants at North West Economic Forum
As discussions intensified, participants from diverse sectors including entrepreneurs, cultural advocates, and others raised a unanimous concern: the Toghu has risen to national and international prominence, yet remains unprotected, unbranded, and economically underleveraged.
What followed was not just cultural nostalgia, but a powerful argument: branding Toghu is about ownership, opportunity, and survival in a competitive global market.
Voices from the floor, though unnamed, carried weighty insight.
“How do we brand Toghu? How do we make more money from it? It comes with having a trademark… and that can only be done through collective effort.” one participant observed indicating that without legal protection, Toghu risks being diluted by imitation or overlooked in global markets even as its aesthetic and cultural prestige soar.
Another speaker, identifying himself as a microfinance manager, echoed this sentiment:
“We haven’t owned it enough… it’s an element of our authenticity… now we are going to have to build.” Wanting perfection, he added, should not stop progress. Pride and incremental improvement, he argued, would help Toghu claim its rightful place in the creative economy.
Several forum contributors pressed the same notion including the fact that Toghu’s legal status must change. They pointed to gaps in intellectual property frameworks that favour individual inventors over communal traditions.
“Who will defend this heritage of thousands of weavers?” one asked.
“Is it the regional assembly? Is it NOWEDIF?” Moderator Charles Tembei ask
Hilltopvoices reporting helps clarify NOFADA’s recent strides on this front. Ahead of the April 2025 Atoghu Fashion Festival, NOFADA’s president Vumomsi Ngwefonta unveiled a strong vision: fashion as both identity and enterprise, under the festival theme “One Brand, One People, The Pride of the Grassfield.”
Through runway shows and inclusive design events like the 2024 Maiden Atoghu Fashion Festival in Bamenda, which featured persons with disabilities, NOFADA has built a narrative of cultural inclusivity and creative excellence around Toghu.
Yet forum speakers insisted that festivals alone are not enough: brand means legal recognition and economic leverage.
“The superior quality of things coming from here must be leveraged,” a panellist said adding that youths might be left behind without formal structures to elevate Toghu beyond cultural celebration into sustainable industry.
Toghu’s value, after all, is undisputed. Once reserved for royalty in the Bamenda Grassfields, it now symbolises Grassfield identity across generations.
It has been proposed that NOWEDIF or the North West Regional Assembly spearhead a task force to define Toghu’s identity with an official trademark, or even geographic indication status which could work in partnership with NOFADA and intellectual property experts.
Such a move, they argued, would allow Toghu to compete in international markets, generate export revenue, cement its cultural pedigree and most importantly, return tangible benefits to the artisans, tailors and farming communities behind each stitch.
As the forum continues with sessions on agribusiness, digital entrepreneurship and investment, the message remained clear: heritage becomes capital when you protect it, promote it, and scale it.
By Bakah Derick for Hilltopvoices Newsroom
Email: hilltopvoicesnewspaper@gmail.com
Tel: 6 94 71 85 77
