Cameroon: Fonya Felix Morfaw Laid to Rest
(coutsey of Cameroon Tribune & allafrica.com)
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Cameroon Tribune (Yaoundé)
23 June 2008
Posted to the web 23 June 2008
Nkendem Forbinake
An impressive crowd of mourners turned out at Ndungated to bury the late D.O. of Kombo Abedimo last Saturday.
What was left of the remains of Fonya Felix Morfaw, Divisional Officer of Kombo Abedimo, Bakassi Peninsula, assassinated last June 9 were buried in his native Ndungated last Saturday.
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A capacity crowd, with mourners from virtually all corners of the Republic came to live this sad event live. Representing the government was the Governor of the South West Province, Louis Eyega Zanga, flanked by the special adviser in the Prime Minister's office Jacob Ketuma Lekunze, Lebialem MP Bernard Foju and all what Lebialem has in the topmost echelons of the administration in Yaounde: Prof. Leke Tambo (SG, MNSEC), Forzie Simon Nkem (IG, Minjustice) Fonkwe Joseph Fongang (Judge, Supreme Court) etc. Of special significance was the massive turnout of the administrative glitterati of the South West in their impressive navy-blue outfits, including Senior Divisional Officers, DOs and classmates at the National School of Administration and Magistracy, ENAM.
After conveying the message of deep compassion of the Head of State upon hearing of the brutal murder of his representative, Governor Eyeya Zanga set the record straight as if to dispel baseless accounts surrounding the death of the D.O. He painstakingly described the events of the fateful day of June 9. From the governor's account, it was learnt that D.O Fonya set out mid-morning from Akwa with eight military personnel comprising officers and men with the intention of visiting Mission Island where it was alleged that some undeclared arms were in circulation. As they approached the island, assembled residents of the Mission fishing settlement opened fire on the nine occupants of the navy vessel in which the party was sailing. Three military personnel succeeded in jumping overboard to safety. The six other persons in the vessel were killed on the spot. Their assailants then took their bodies along in the navy boat to an unknown destination. It was after eight days of a frantic search that the body of Divisional Officer Fonya and those of the other occupants were found in a mangrove swamp far off the attack scene.
The governor also revealed that residents of the fishing settlement all evacuated the area shortly after the killing incident and that investigations were still going on with regard to the motives of the killing and the evacuation of the island by its residents for an unknown destination.
Fonya's burial also provided a good occasion for some questioning. While his classmates at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College Fontem (1971-1976) and those of ENAM (1987-1989) all acknowledged his trade-mark humour, franc-parler and efficiency at work, his family and Ndungated people seemed rather disturbed about the fact that in under seven months, two of theirs had been killed in the Bakassi area on government service (an army staff sergeant was among those killed on November 12, 2007 in Bakassi). Lawrence Njuzy aka Nkemasong, the current President of the Ndungated Cultural and Development Association deplored the bumpy career of Fonya. If he had been adequately rewarded for his rank and services to the nation, a senior administrative officer of his standing could not have been serving at a small locality as Kombo Abedimo, Njuzy argued.
But in his remarks, Governor Eyeya Zanga said no sacrifice could be so big for one's nation. And emphasising that he knew Fonya rather well, even in death, the assassinated D.O. would accept his condition. Mr Eyeya Zanga also called on Cameroonians civil servants to be ready to sacrifice their lives for their fatherland and stop believing that the pasture is always greener in the neighbour's courtyard.
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Participants were thrown into generalized weeping when Fonya's widow Odilia bravely sang a goodbye song, composed by her, for the eternal repose of one she shared that last 18 years of her life; a life with Fonya she described as a continuous honeymoon.
South-West Governor Eyeya Zanga affixed the medal of "Knight of the National Order of Valour" on the coffin to posthumously acknowledge his meritorious services to the nation.
Under a drizzle, his classmates then carried the casket off the main courtyard of the Fon of Ndungatet into a waiting gendarmerie hearse. He was lowered into his final resting place one kilometre away at a plot he had recently acquired at "Alou-Three Corners" and on which he had intended to build a comfortable home.
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