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Mr. Martin Ngamdzele
Obituary
Obituary
You could not pronounce the name MARTIN without NGAMDZELE. If you attempted to do so, the feeling was that you were separating identical twins. I guest that it had something to do with the rhyming scheme. You did not need to say much about him in the public and everyone knew who you were talking about. He was a shrewd and articulate raconteur, a politician and an ardent farmer. He died last Monday 31 August 2011 while hiking as his way to regain his poor health. He had been suffering from diabetes and was in and out of Banso Baptist Hospital (BBH), Kumbo. I first met this towering huge man in the early seventies. I was clearing a public path in front of our cottage at Shiy suburbia of Jakiri when he approached me. He was then in his early forties, clad in a gray long woolen coat that reminded me of Sir Winston Churchill whose portrait was in our history text book. The only difference between him and Churchill was that he was ebony black and had no cigar on his lips. He greeted me enthusiastically with admiration of what I was doing. Rarely would pupils take up their lances and clear public paths unless requested to do so by their elders. No one had ordered me to do so. Extempore, he posed me a couple of questions: What class I was in and if I would do a master’s degree on completion of my secondary school at St. Augustine’s College (SAC), Kumbo. Those were thought-provoking and extraordinary questions from a stranger. Coy as I was, I lowered my head and gave him a positive reply. He beamed and left but I never led him down. My affirmation was a promise and a bond later on fulfilled.
It afterward transpired that he was not a stranger in my family. He had been my family friend and knew my father at close quarters. As I mimicked my father in complexion, and mannerisms no one could mistake me for not being his son. This year 2011 AD makes 41 years since I set eyes on this majestic man and our chemistry met and never severed. With time, I got acquainted with his parents. His father was an honorary Fai (Lord or chief priest) and a God-fearing man too. As a staunch Catholic Christian he had sought sanctuary at Fumban in the 1940s when he was forcibly installed as a Fai of the Bah clan at Shiy. In consequence, Martin’s father could not continue to pay his tuition fees at Nkar Roman Catholic School as it was known in those days. Martin sought the assistance of a Briton, Mr. R. A. Baker, a manager of the United African Company (UAC). Mr. Baker who had settled at Jakiri in the ward below the present Veterinary School accepted to sponsor him in school. Martin was so pleased and excelled in his courses irrespective of constantly falling at logger head in the early 1950s with Rev. Fr. Wynand Niellissen (Mill Hill) the founder of the Roman Catholic Mission (RCM) at Nkar in 1948. We suspect it was due to his interest in traditional medicine or truancy.
That was not the end of Martin’s predicaments emanating from his father’s forced investiture. Mr. Baker who had put a sign board above his home, Journey’s End’ was a single diabetic patient. He was a retired British soldier. He had served His Britannic Majesty’s Government in India and decided to live the rest of his life in the temperate Grassfields of British Southern Cameroons. Irrespective of the fact that he had built his home at Jakiri, owing to his ill health, he was advised by his compeers and the British Colonial Government to leave British Cameroons. He left and settled in Cornwall, England. This departure was another blow to young Martin. He could not continue with his education and playing football he was passionate about. He was not the only element affected by Baker’s untimely departure. A retinue of servants Baker had employed was forced to retire. As Martin’s father was still on self-exile at Fumban, then French Cameroons, Martin left school for good after completing what was then known as Standard Four. I must admit that the standards of education were high in those days as Martin was able to compose good letters and spoke impeccable English [barah woo bvetin].
With time he became interested in politics and mixed farming. In earnest, he planted coffee, cola nut tickets, citrus, palm bushes, raised goats and sheep and was one of the first to practice aquaculture, inland fisheries in his village. Thanks to the teaching of American Peace Corps Volunteers.
Meanwhile, in the late 1960s Martin joined Mr. John N. Foncha’s political party, KNDP after first dabbling in the late 1950s with the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) branch in British Cameroons known as One Kamerun (OK) led by the late Mr. Ndeh Ntumazah. This was clandestine as a sister political party, the UPC led by Um Nyobe in French Cameroons had been banned by the French and members were hunted and killed or incarcerated. The French colonial troops backed by askaris drawn from the French Equatorial Africa (FEA) were after activists of those parties. Martin as a dynamic, ambitious and daring youth housed some members, maquisards who were wanted in both the French and British Cameroons in his hut. His father could have skinned him alive if that was discovered. He would prepare food for Ntumazah and cronies and they would venture out at night to exercise in the village commons. Martin was determined to follow them as he thought it was a good idea to rid both colonial Cameroons of colonialism and have political independence. He risked his life and before the nose of the Royal Highland Troops stationed at Jakiri cattle ranch, he and his cohorts slipped one night in a Land Rover and reached Bamenda. While in Bamenda with another Nsonite. (Wir Nso), Finakii at midnight they set out to go on exile. The party was heading to Ghana and Guinea Conakry via Nigeria and subsequently to proceed to Abdul Nasser’s Egypt or Bulgaria that were sympathetic to the UPC/OK causes. Martin was excited.
On reaching Mfum, Nigeria/Southern Cameroons frontier, they got news of the bombing over night by the French colonial agents of the house where they had sojourned at Bamenda. A couple sleeping in that house in an adjacent room was instantly killed. The French Colonial army was after the UPCists. The question was who might have tipped the French authorities of their whereabouts and why the British Colonial Troops did allow the French to leave Mboda to come all the way to execute their task on Her Britannic Majesty’s Trusteeship Territory of British Cameroons. [There might have been intelligence swapping by the French and the British in their attempt to stamp out freedom fighters that were fighting for the independence of Cameroun Republic, then French Cameroons.] However, at Mfum Bridge, Martin for reasons not revealed decided to return to Nso’. We suspect he was scared to death by the elimination of the couple at Bamenda or he was nostalgic.
In the 1960s he joined John Ngu Foncha’s KNDP. He did not stop at that. Still politically ambitious, he campaigned at Dzekwa constituency in the Nsaw District Council (NDC) Election and was elected as a councilor to represent Dzekwa. He became popular and songs were composed about him. When he left the Nsaw District Council (NDC) as it was then known, he concentrated on village politics in his native village of Shiy (Observation Point). He made lots of friends and enemies. He was outspoken and righted it when it was wronged. He was eventually defeated by Mr. Patrick Mborong of his village. Irrespective of that, he made his contributions and took part in village development projects with Shiy Development Association (SHIDA): pipe borne water, road construction, HIV/AIDS awareness and lately rural electrification. His last complaint was that he took part in the digging of trenches for the water at Shiy, yet was unable to drink from a tape five hundred yards from his homestead. It was alleged that he did not make contributions in the digging of trenches for the pipes an infuriating allegation he vehemently refuted. At an advanced age he walked a kilometer to the Shiy Catholic Mission premises where there was a public pipe to yoke his drinking water back to his home. He explained that he had to do that to avoid confrontation with his neighbors.
Martin ever regretted one thing in his life, viz. that if his father had not been forcibly installed a Fai an act that sent him into exile to the French Cameroons, he would have gone so far in the field of academics. In spite of his modest education, he was articulate, intelligent, and full of confidence and wise sayings. He was an admirer of early Nso elite as, Mr. B. T. Sakah, Dr. Dan Lantum and was a personal friend of Dr. Bernard Fonlon whom he described as a lavish giver. He never stopped counseling and insistence on paragons. He once suggested rural planning where homes scattered could be agglomerated so as to leave ample free land for eventual mechanized farming. He went on that it would be cheaper when establishing differentiated public amenities. Sadly this never took up. He supported President Paul Biya though grudgingly for his negligence of development in the NW Region particularly market-to-farm roads and the industrialization of the former West Cameroon. He was met on several occasions trudging the hill to Jakiri donned in CPDM freely-given uniform to attend political assemblies.
During his last chat with this author on Sunday 30 August, 2011, a day prior to his demise, he revealed that Mr. Paul Biya was to win the forth coming presidential election on October 9, 2011 but would reign for a brief period after which he was to handover the rein of his governance to a man with Nso affiliations. Asked who that man was; he pondered and gave me the name that is withheld. Furthermore, on education he told me that he had come to a conclusion that the only legacy worthy of bequeathing one’s children was nothing other than seasoned education. [He meant Westernism]. Martin was my local mentor, my Winston Churchill who never fought wars in status, and a sympathetic man who was also knowledgeable in tribal norms. He told me that it was only a man who had no love for his people that would not take part in politics given opportunities to right glaring wrongs.
Martin was a practicing critical Catholic, married and had one son Wilfred Mayi, a retired army officer in the Cameroun army. Before he died on Monday 31, August 2011 he was already a grand father and one of his grandsons was a law student at the University of Yaoundé I. Level-headed mavericks like Martin Ngamdzele are rare. We shall miss him.
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