Agbor Tabi’s funeral:Prominent Manyu elites absent

There is no gainsaying the fact that movers and shakers of every community are always expected on the front rows at funerals of their fellow mover and shaker who happens to embark on the journey beyond before them.

Agbor Tabi’s funeral was undeniably one of such funerals. Though many top dignitaries defied the odds along the bumpy Kumba-Mamfe road or Babadjou-Bamenda road to bid the fallen statesman farewell, the absence in Mamfe of some elite of his Manyu Division remained conspicuous and left some observers bewildered.

Jerome Obi Eta, current Board Chairman of the Cameroon Water Utilities, CAMWATER who is equally former Public Works Minister was nowhere near the Mamfe ceremonial ground where state personalities and the people who call the shots in the division gathered to pay their last respect to the fallen academic and political goliath.

In as much as some high ranking personalities who hail from Manyu are reported to have been spotted in Mamfe, they were just as absent from the Mamfe ceremonial ground as Hon. Ndep William Effiom who told The Cameroon Journal that he could not go there because he was not invited.

The former Speaker of the West Cameroon House of Assembly’s excuse for staying away, a Manyu indigene told The Cameroon Journal, cannot be dismissed by the wave of the hand.

“Though people are not expected to be invited before they attend funerals as per our African culture in general and Manyu in particular, Hon. Effiom might have felt frustrated by the fact that other elite of the division were served invitations in Agbor Tabi’s case.” He said, adding that it would have appeared he was forcing himself to a place he not wanted at.

Another source close to Effiom, also a onetime Grand Chancellor of National Orders, suggested he

would not have been there even if he were invited. “Effiom has not been drinking alcohol for a long time. When he learnt of Agbor Tabi’s demise, he drank half a bottle of wine. He even joked that so someone who called them dead wood can die too”, our source said.

Ayah Paul Abine, a Manyu native and Deputy Advocate General of the Supreme Court and leader of the People’s Action Party was equally absent from the funeral. He told The Cameroon Journal in a telephone interview yesterday that he was busy doing other things which were more important than the funeral of his fellow Manyu elite.

Meanwhile, a lecturer of the University of Maroua who would prefer not to be named, referred to any Anglophone not mourning the deceased Deputy Secretary General at the Presidency as an ingrate.

To him, it is thanks to Agbor Tabi that the Universities of Buea and Bamenda were decreed “Anglo-Saxon”, by President Biya. “Now that he is gone, if you are not careful, francophone lecturers will start teaching UB and UBa students in French. I am sure you are aware of the harmonisation plan?” he asked rhetorically.

He buttressed his argument with the fact that Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, Secretary General at the Presidency, who represented President Biya at the funeral, described the late statesman as the head of state’s confidante.

“When the President needed advice on issues concerning Anglophones education, he consulted AgborTabi”, insinuating that he was a stumbling block to government officials who had been nursing plans to kill the Anglophone system of education in Cameroon.

Before the removal of the mortal remains of Agbor Tabi from Paris, France, it was alleged that he left behind a list of 28 persons who should not attend his funeral. Unconfirmed sources went as far as stating that some personalities whose names were on the list had vowed to defy the deadman’s last wish- this, on grounds that it was a public funeral and even the family would not have control over it, especially in a public arena.

The deceased’s family, however, refuted the allegations, stating categorically that such a list does not exist.

The late professor was nevertheless given a befitting burial. His corpse arrived the country through the Yaounde Nsimalen International Airport last Monday evening.

On Thursday June 4, the former higher education minister and board chair of the University of Yaounde II was given academic honours at the amphitheatre 700 of the University of Yaounde I. A wake was observed in his Biteng residence same day before the corpse was transferred to Mamfe, through Kumba.

On June 5, his corpse arrived Mamfe in a motorcade of over 100 cars, accompanied by top government officials who later on witnessed how he was posthumously decorated as Officer of the National Order of Valour.