Honouring a Great Intellectual

Book Review by Martin Jumbam

Daniel Noni Lantum, ed. Dr. Bernard Nsokika Fonlon (1924-1986) is now a legend: Funeral Addresses, Tributes and Eulogies, Kumbo Town: Nso History Society Publication No 3, May 1988, pp. xii + 107. No price given.

Revised and reproduced from Cameroon Tribune, May 1989.

Three years ago come next August 26, Professor Bernard Nsokika Fonlon died suddenly in Ottawa, Canada. His death came at a particularly painful moment for our country that was still reeling from the blows of the Lake Nyos disaster, that tragedy that was to pin Cameroon in the headlines of world news for years to come, bequeathing to us a notoriety we would only have been too happy to do without.

As shock waves rippled through the intellectual circles in Cameroon at the announcement of the venerable professor’s death, muses began to dance on the tongues of poets and non-poets alike, pumping from deep down the heart of many a friend and foe, emotions of intense distress over the passing away of this great patriot.

Nearly three years later, the venerable professor’s "Friend and Brother," Professor/Doctor/Faay-wo-Bastos Daniel Noni Lantum has immortalised this elder statesman’s memory by collecting heartfelt emotions expressed in funeral speeches, tributes and eulogies in a richly illustrated book for posterity to ponder over.

The book in question has a rather lengthy title: Dr. Bernard Nsokika Fonlon (1924-1968) is now a Legend: Funeral Addresses, Tributes and Eulogies, and is, according to the editor, the third publication by the little known "Nso History Society" apparently based in Kumbo Town, Bui Division in the North-West Province.

This book is, to my knowledge, the first of what some of us had secretly hoped would by now be an avalanche of publications on the late professor’s life.

Every contributor to this book expresses, in one way or another, genuine surprise and admiration that at a time our society is so largely characterized by a grab-all-keep-all mentality, someone of Professor Fonlon’s stature, with so much political power and material wealth within easy reach, could have shunned them all so as not to compromise his intellectual integrity.

Even though the editor of this book does clearly indicate, in the Preface, that this book contains only "…. the funeral speeches, tributes and eulogies that were written and circulated during the funeral celebrations and within the first three months of the passing of Bernard Nsokika Fonlon," I find it regrettable that he did not include contributions by Cameroonians of French expression.

Some of them, especially those who had known Dr. Fonlon in the fifties in Paris and who held him in very high esteem did, "within the first three months" of his death, pay him their due respect, mainly in the local press.

The editor has also indicated that his book will "be continued and edited." One therefore hopes that such a revised, and hopefully enlarged, version would carry those truly marvelous tributes to Professor Fonlon by his academic friends abroad, notably in Canada and the United States of America.

To many of them, Professor Fonlon was, as one of them so succinctly put it, "a statesman, not only of Cameroon, but of the world;" and their words of farewell to him are a true salute to the fallen statesman and literary giant that was Bernard Nsokika Fonlon.

Mention of such oversights is not in anyway meant to detract from the otherwise laudable efforts Dr. Lantum has made to immortalise the memory of his "Friend and Brother," Bernard Nsokika Fonlon.