Genuine Intellectuals. Academic and Social Responsibilities of Universities in Africa: Academic and Social Responsibilities of Universities in Africa

Chapter Nine - Tributes to Professor Dr. Bernard Fonlon

123 Genuine Intellectuals: Academic and Social Responsibilities of Universities in Africa Chapter Nine Tributes to Professor Dr. Bernard Fonlon (19th November 1924 – 26th August 1986) Remembering Dr. Bernard Fonlon By Paul Verdzekov – Archbishop Emeritus of Bamenda (Originally published in 2006 on the 20th anniversary of Dr. Fonlon’s passing) 1. Twenty years ago, on 26th August 1986, Bernard Nsokika Fonlon died in Canada. He had gone there in the month of May of that year in order to receive a doctorate degree in Literature (D. Litt.) from the University of Guelph, and it was his intention to spend the 1986/1987 academic year in the United States of America, within the framework of a Fulbright programme. But the Lord, the Giver of Life, decided otherwise. Bernard died in Canada at the age of sixty-one years, and nine months and six days. He would have been sixty-two years of age on 19th November 1986. His mortal remains were brought home to Cameroon, and he was buried behind Saint Teresa’s Cathedral at Kimbo’, in the Nso’ country, the little town where he was born on 19th November 1924. The mortal remains of Bernard Fonlon arrived back in Cameroon at the time when the people of Cameroon, as a whole, and of the Bamenda Grasslands, in particular, were devastated by a sudden and unexpected tragedy, namely, the Lake Nyos gas disaster, which occurred on 21st August 1986, and which, within minutes, claimed the lives of hundreds and hundreds of our fellow country men and women. 124 Bernard Nsokika Fonlon 2. In an Obituary written for the Summer 1986 issue of the Bulletin of the African Literature Association, Edmonton, Canada, I.C. Tcheho, of the University of Yaounde, said, inter alia: “Throughout all his life, he (Professor Fonlon) was the very incarnation of his belief in the supremacy of intellectual life over the material life. Consequently, he practised, in a rare manner, the virtue of detachment from materialist preoccupations. ‘I have not garnered gold’, he writes with emphasis in a second Letter addressed to the Bishops of Buea and Bamenda in 1979… By means of a great number of his everyday life, Bernard Nsokika Fonlon fought hard, without counting the cost, for the triumph, here and now, of the essential values of the human being. In a very special manner, he was preoccupied in the highest degree by the future of African Youth in contemporary Africa which is extremely exposed to moral degradation. He held that every African, whatever be his or her position of responsibility, has the sacred duty to seek excellence at all times… The moral ideal of Bernard Fonlon can be summed up in that other adage which he liked to cite in learned Latin: Integer vitae scelerisque purus (Purity of a life untarnished by sin)” (My weak and approximate translation from the French original). 3. Another Obituary by a close friend of Bernard Fonlon, which also appeared in the above-mentioned bulletin of the African Literature Association, is that of Richard Bjornson of Ohio State University. He said, inter alia: “The death of Bernard Fonlon in an Ottawa hospital room was completely overshadowed by the horror of the Lake Nyos disaster that occurred some thirty miles from his birthplace of Banso in the North-West Province of Cameroon. In some ways, the very fact that he died in semi- 125 Genuine Intellectuals: Academic and Social Responsibilities of Universities in Africa obscurity is symbolically appropriate, for despite the accomplishments of his life, Fonlon was a humble man, who never really sought the limelight. As others gained fame and notoriety, he laboured patiently and effectively – as a government minister, as the editor of an impressive cultural journal, and as a teacher – to realize the lofty ideals he had set for himself. He always defended the highest standards of excellence, and unlike many of his successful countrymen, he was never interested in amassing a personal fortune. In fact, he became an almost legendary exemplar of integrity and the modest life style in a country where conspicuous consumption is commonly regarded as a perquisite of success”. 4. Another touching tribute to Bernard Nsokika Fonlon is that of his friend, Professor G.D. Killam, of Guelph University. His tribute to Bernard Fonlon also appears in the above-mentioned Bulletin of the African Literature Association, Edmonton. Professor Killam said, inter alia: “Dr. Bernard Fonlon’s contribution to Cameroonian life in politics...