BIOGRAPHY
Chief Justice GEORGE FONCHAM GANG was born on 2nd February 1958 in Soppo-Buea, the 4th child in the family of Mr Gang Pasiga Robert (RIP), a Catholic school teacher and Mami Cecilia Kavoma Gaduna Gang, a housewife.
Baptized the day after he was born, his Godfather was Pa John Gana Fomban of Blessed memory, to whom George would stay fondly attached.
George grew up among his siblings, free-spirited, highly provocative, non-conformist, always in the heart of action and ready to take on anyone, even older boys who dared challenge him. This character trait would earn him serious floggings both at home and at school. Popularly known as “trong kanda’ (tough skin) in his early childhood because of his capacity to take, without flinching or crying, a flogging or thrashing from his teachers or from his dad. He finally succeeded in defeating his father and obliging him to abandon his principle of “spare the rod and spoil the child” after admitting woefully that he would kill the child if he continued using the stick. George won one more time.
George was an exceptionally intelligent kid with no difficulty in learning even the most difficult things. He earned the respect of friends and teachers. His good school results would make him a kid to be reckoned with. When he was in a good frame of mind to play the teacher he made himself useful in helping other intellectually less endowed kids.
His childhood and early teens would be filled with experiences, some hilarious, others hair-raising and others totally exasperating for his strict father. He challenged authority, flirted with death and showed such unmitigated temerity that all were awed by his dare-devil pranks. Anecdotes abound: ---After toiling long hours with his kid sister Agnes to sell the fruits of their hard -earned labour in a local market, George decided on the way back from the market and as they crossed the Yoke bridge, that he would drop all the money into the river because he did not need it after all. He held the purse over the bridge and threatened dropping it into the river. Agnes pleaded and wept for over twenty minutes before he finally had a change of heart, ‘pardoned’ his sister and put the money back into his pocket.
---On a visit to Kumba his aunt sent him with a parcel to another elderly aunt. George arrived the compound, casually asked bystanders if this was Maya’s house. The aunt came out wondering which kid would call her name without the prefix of deference ‘Ma’, only to see boy George looking her defiantly and unapologetically in the eye.
– In primary school in Muyuka, everyone said if you ate limes and kolanut together you would die instantly. George immediately looked for the items and consumed them to the amazement of his peers
– At thirteen or thereabouts he inexplicably decided his middle name would no longer be written as Foncham but as Chamfon (the Fon’s balls!!) and actually put it on his school books. Papa went beserk and nearly foamed in the mouth wondering why only his son would come up with such irreverent and provocative inventions and what the then Fon would think if he heard about it.
--At a 20th May football finals, as goalkeeper of the Lyceé Bilingue football team, he brought the match to a halt by seizing the ball in protest over a supposed bad call by the referee causing the Governor to leave the stadium.
– Until recently, George revelled in telling the story how in the Lycée he once climbed and walked on a high wall from which a fall would have meant instant death. The discipline master, Mr Akonombo went on his knees begging George for forgiveness and pleading with him to come down. He eventually did but not without having enjoyed seeing his discipline master go on his knees.
When our parents moved from Soppo to Muyuka, George quickly adapted himself to his new environment. He became a pupil of St Peter Claver’s primary school where he completed and obtained his FSLC in 1968. That same year our father fell sick of an undiagnosed disease that kept him unemployed for six months and this would thwart George’s ambition to proceed immediately to Secondary school.
Unfazed by this unforeseen dilemma and deciding it was unprofitable to stay idly at home, George would decide to relocate to Buea with his elder brother Joe Babila who had just moved to Buea as a young gendarme in 1968. Together with his brother, George took the mature decision for a young kid, to enrol into the upper classes of the newly opened Ecole Francophone primary school at the Gendarme quarters in Buea so he could learn French. Under the tough discipline of his gendarme brother, who left him after his transfer to Yaounde in 1969, in the even tougher hands of another gendarme-major colleague Peter Tasah Ambah, a boxer, George obtained his CEPE in 1972.
He got admission the same year into the Government Bilingual High School (Lycée Bilingue) Buea obtaining a BEPC in 1975 and the GCE “A Levels” in 1977. After dabbling for a while with the idea of going into the Army and being discouraged by his elder siblings, he gained admission into the University of Yaoundé and graduated with a degree in the Laws (L.L.B Hons)
George picked up his first job with an NGO, Care Cameroon, where he worked for two years.
It was during this period that he met, fell in love and in 1984 was joined in holy matrimony with the love of his life Gladys Luma DAIGA (of blessed memory), an aspiring and promising young lady who bore him 4 lovely children. As Gladys became pregnant with the first child Thierry, George, totally displeased with the attitude problems from some of his foreign bosses began to caress his big dream – to get admission into ENAM. He predictably had no difficulty breezing through the highly competitive entrance examination into the venerable institution from where he graduated in 1986.
A rich professional career in Magistracy would start in Kumba spanning three decades during which he served successively and successfully in different positions of responsibility in several towns in the NW and SW regions and in the Ministry of Justice.
It would be during his period as State Counsel in the High Court of Mezam that he would face, on the 28th December 2003, a terrible tragedy - the loss in a tragic accident on the Bali-Bamenda road of his lovely wife Gladys as well as his two children Dop, 17 and Daiga, 12 years old. This tragedy would have a toll on his health and he came down with hypertension and subsequently suffered a minor stroke. And yet he soldiered on with an enormous amount of courage, facing the difficult and daunting task of raising his two surviving teenage children, Thierry who had miraculously escaped death in the accident and Bissona his 15 year old daughter, as well as fulfilling his professional responsibilities for three more years in the same position.
He was later appointed President of the High Court for Mezam in 2006 before being transferred to Buea and to Kumba in the same position in 2010 and 2012 respectively. He gratefully received his successive transfers and promotions, culminating in 2017 with his final appointment as Chief Justice for the Appeal Court for the Far North Region in Maroua. During his career he received two honorific distinctions – Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Valeur (2009) and Officier de l’Ordre de la Valeur (2018).
In May 2014 after more than 10 years of widowerhood, George met and married a charming young lady, Irene ELOKOBI seeking to add some solace and sunshine into his life. Irene bore George two beautiful children: Bilola and George Foncham Junior.
An adoring and doting son, Chief Justice Gang, together with his siblings, buried their father who passed away in 2013 at the ripe old age of 92. Justice Gang then turned to playing husband to his widowed mother, despite the existence of an official successor. He made sure he gave his mother anything her little heart desired. He made several trips even from his distant Maroua to be with her.
In November 2019, against all odds, he succeeded in convincing Mama to visit him in Maroua. Everyone predicted that Mama, at her age, would apprehensively turn down the invitation. But surprisingly, Mama accepted and left, bag, baggage and caregiver and spent some of her most memorable moments in Maroua. Mama was treated to a red-carpet reception in her honour with a choir and the top brass of the region in attendance. Was this, as Mama reflected on the day she learnt of his death, a premonitory farewell?
As a man of the people, Justice Gang cultivated the fine art of succeeding in engaging with people of all walks of life. None was too small or inconsequential to have access to him and he unhesitatingly left no stone unturned to find solutions to problems brought to his attention. His gregarious and happy-go-lucky nature led him to be found in some unlikely places “unbefitting” for a man of his stature. But if he felt he was happy having a drink in good company in an off-licence, then so be it.
He prided himself with endeavouring to uphold the ethics of his noble profession. His family has made lasting friendships with people he helped and who showed appreciation for his unbiased and spontaneous assistance and goodwill.
Justice Gang was a practising Roman Catholic christian who revved up his faith, his participation in church activities and continued to ensure the moral and religious education of his children after the death of his wife Gladys who during her lifetime volunteered as a catechist despite her busy life as a teacher, wife and mother. He actually renewed his marriage vows with Irene about five years after their marriage in a recent church ceremony in Maroua in January 2020.
Justice Gang had an irrepressible passion for football which he played both at school and later on in his much-cherished Veterans’ Club making sure he started a club in any town he moved to which had none. As he progressed in age his favourite pastime became coaching and mentoring the clubs. He was a social bird, either hanging out with friends; actively participating in his Lycée Bilingue Buea ex-students’ association as well as many other social and cultural groups like Nsun Nsun etc. He had a strong attachment to his roots and culture and made sure he was an active member of all the Bali cultural meetings in the towns where he was called to work. In fact, it is on record that he brought new blood to the Bali cultural group meeting in Maroua as soon as he arrived there making members to look forward to their monthly meetings.
He loved travelling reading, dancing and above all farming which became his major pet project. He actually planned to go big on farming once he retired.
On Thursday the 30th of April mama spoke to him and learnt he was not feeling too well but nothing to worry about. She however communicated the information to some siblings and the whole family flew into action, most from their distant locations to see what they could do once they learnt he had been admitted into hospital on Saturday the 2nd of May. Inspite of the concerted effort of family as well as friends, some from the medical profession, Chief Justice Gang passed on to eternity on Thursday the 7th of May 2020 at 10pm at the Maroua Provincial Hospital. Justice Gang is returning to his Creator and finally reuniting with his late wife Gladys and his two children DOP and DAIGA as well as his dad Pa Robert Gang.
He leaves behind his wife Irene, his mother, seven children and seven grandchildren, several brothers and sisters, his colleagues of the Judiciary as well as a host of friends and family to mourn his loss.
MAY GOD GRANT HIM ETERNAL REST.
