Albert Esseme Ndille, 1959-2014

Casualty in battle for political ascendancy?
The sudden and untimely death of Albert Esseme Ndille, a financial and political heavyweight of Kupe-Muanenguba Division, who did not conceal his ambition to attain greater heights in the politico-administrative landscape of his clan and Cameroon, and the timing of the unfortunate happening – about when there is talk of an imminent cabinet reshuffle, has left commentators wondering if he was not butchered on the battlefield of his political quest.
By Ayukogem Steven Ojong in Yaounde
Albert Esseme Ndille, former director of salaries and pensions at the Ministry of Finance and a Kupe Muanenguba CPDM heavyweight from Tombel sub-division, did not hide his ambition to attain higher heights in the Biya regime.
    Coming from a division that is reputed to have an inexhaustible bank of potential office holders, Ndille was one of the very few who made his ambitions known, and he pursued them without fear or complacency.
    But when Esseme Ndille died as suddenly as he did on 24 May 2014, at a time so close to popular expectation for a government reshuffle, he was widely said to have died on the battlefield of his political quest.

    It was popularly said that having died barely 2 weeks after he returned from his village in Tombel to burry his junior brother, the cause of his death could be traced there. But this need not be so given the hidden nature of political battles which are sometimes and perhaps more often fought through witchcraft.
    Many senior state officials in Cameroonhave at one time or the other complained of witchcraft attacks that they suffered.   
    That mat just be why commentators in Yaounde and back in Tombel have crafted and continue to craft different versions about the cause of Esseme Ndille’s sudden and untimely death.
    At the mortuary of the Yaounde General Hospital where Ndille’s body was coffined for viewing on Thursday 26 June 2014, this reporter recorded as many versions on the cause of Ndille’s death as there were mourners. Other versions emerged later in the evening during the all-night vigil at late Ndille’s sumptuous residence at Odja in Yaounde and even at the funeral grounds in Tombel on Friday 27 June breaking Saturday 28 June 2014.
    Some commentators said that Pa Ndille, as Esseme Ndille was fondly called, was tipped to enter Biya’s next government, and that he had already been received at Etoudi. The rumour continued that to boost his chances Pa Ndille resorted to ritual sacrifices to invoke the gods not to allow his name to be dropped from the president’s final shortlist of ministers.
    Other rumour-mongers said that Pa Ndille was a victim of the wrath of his ancestors, who were invoked by family members during the burial of his junior brother and urged to retaliate and kill the young man’s killers. The perpetrators of this version drew the conclusion that it was not by chance that Ndille had to die barely one month after his brother, on thesame day and exactly two weeks after his burial.
    Yet others said that after failing in his quest to become senator or MP, Ndille who at 57 (it is s believed that he was much older), was on the verge of his retirement from the public service, did not want the opportunity of an appointment in government to slip through his fingers; he therefore engaged in undercover battles and got badly wounded in the process.
    Some said that even in the unlikely event that Ndille was not involved in any political battles, the mere fact that he was in an arena of war did not spare him a stray bullet.
    Then another version has it that Pa Ndille and his late junior brother were involved in a deal to sell part of a hill along the Tombel-Loum road to Nigerian business magnate and Cement Manufacturer, Aliko Dangote, who needed the hill as a source of raw materials for his cement factory in Douala. This version that was widely propagated in bars in Tombel had it that Ndille and others in the deal were oblivious of the fact that the said hill was also a sacred haven and shrine for the witchcraft perpetrators in Bakossi land, who would not afford to lose their forttress and so decided to wipe out all those involved in the land deal with wealthy Nigerian, including Pa Ndille and his junior brother.
    Then another version had it that Ndille had since taken ill and his doctors in the USA had hinted him that his days on earth were numbered. That upon this notification Ndille started preparing his eventual exit from earth; he started taking an inventory of his many investments and even began liquidating some.
    The stories on the cause of Pa Ndille’s sudden death can go on without end. But we will not mention all in this write-up for want of space.
    However, all these speculations and stories  only lead us to ask the following questions: (1)- Are the propagators of these speculations and stories insinuating that in Cameroon in general and Bakossi land in particular no body ever dies of a natural cause? (2)- Is it so abnormal for somebody to die at the age of 57 in a country whose life expectancy is only 49 years? (3)- Did all these people who have been speculating and continue to speculate on the cause of Ndille’s demise, ever bother to approach his immediate family to get the right information? and (4) Isn’t it time enough for Cameroonians to accommodate the fact that death is inevitable, and the ultimate end to our stay on earth; and that once you live you must die some day?.
    We of this newspaper knew Pa Ndille as a God-fearing man, an ardent Presbyterian Christian and some body who lived by the Bible. And we believe that Pa Ndille died at God’s chosen time. We should learn to honour the dead and not vilify them.