Wednesday, 12 March 2014

HRH Henry NamataElangwe: A Baobab has fallen!



Bakundu people mourn their leader!  CDC counts its loses! 
By Eddy Bokuba in Kumba
The Board Chairman of the Cameroon Development Corporation (C.D.C) who doubled as the Paramount Ruler of the Bakundus has been buried. HRM Henry NamataElangwe was buried on Saturday 8 March 2014 in his Kake-Bongwana Palace in Kumba. He died on Wednesday 5 March 2014, at about 2.50 am, in Douala, after a brief illness. He was aged 82.
  The death of the CDC board chairman comes barely few years following that of the former GM of the giant agro-industries, Henry NjallaQuan alias Bonjo Boy, who died in December 2011. The company also recently lost several scores of its workers, in a ghastly car crash along the Tiko-Douala highway.

  


HRM Henry NamataElangwe


Tata Henry NamataElangwe was born on 28 November 1932 in Kake, Kumba, in Meme Division of the South West Region. After his primary and secondary education in Cameroon, he proceeded to Nigeria where he earned a Diploma in pharmacy from the Yaba Pharmacy School. Upon returning to Cameroon he opened the first Pharmacy in Kumba in 1953 and named it Premier Pharmacy.
   Apart from being a pharmacist, Tata Henry Elangwe was also a brilliant Politician. He became the first Member of Parliament from Kumba in the early 1960's and was later appointed in 1967 as Secretary of State of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister in the government of the then West Cameroon. Because of his Commitment and loyalty to the party and the state, he was among the first 12 members appointedby president AhmadouAhidjo to the Political-Bureau of the Cameroon National Union (C.N.U). Later, following the creation of the CPDM party in Bamenda, he was again co-opted into the Central Committee of the party.
   In 1972, when Cameroon became a united republic, Henry NamataElangwe was appointed the first Minister of Mines and Power. It was during his tenure at that ministry that the rich oil deposits at Cape -Limbo, Mokudange in Limbe were discovered.
     When Tata NamataElangwe was crow ned the traditional ruler of Kake-Bongwana, a 2nd Class Chiefdom in the Bakundu clan, in 1979 he decided to return to Kumba to serve and guide his people and also take on his practice of Pharmacy.
   And because the authorities were not oblivious of his rich experience as administrator and leader, they elevated him on 20 March 2004 to the covetous position of Board Chairman of the C.D.C., a position he occupied until his passing on.
  A brilliant and valiant professional Tata Henry Elangwe was honoured with the 50 years Golden Coat Award by the Cameroon Association of Pharmacists. He was also a Knight of the Cameroon Order of Valor.   
   True to his status as a traditional chief, Tata Henry Elangwe was a polygamist and a father of 10 children, the eldest being Geoff NamataElangwe, a medical doctor working with SONARA Limbe.
   Tata Henry Elangwe would be mourned in the entire Bakundu clan where he was the paramount ruler and the sole “Tata”; the vast CDC community, his wife and children, other family members, friends and Sympathizers. Many especially his peers have likened his passing to the fall of a baobab tree.

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