By Walter Wilson Nana
Joseph Nsandap Ewunkem, the celebrated Cameroonian footballer who died on July 10 2012 has been buried in his Street 8, Great Soppo Residence in Buea.
Prior to the Saturday, August 4 2012 burial, a gala football match took place at the Buea-Town Green Stadium in his honour, followed by a funeral mass at the Immaculate Conception of Mary Catholic Church, Great Soppo.
Late Joseph Ewunkem
In his homily, Rev/Fr John Assua said death indicates the limitations of the human mind, adding that God is God, man is man. “Man can never take the place of God. The Christian faith is our only consolation. God’s ways are not man’s ways,” he explained.
Assua said the fullness of life is in Heaven and not on earth, noting that it is in God that humanity look up to salvation. He mentioned that Ewunkem listened and believed in the Gospel of the Lord, “therefore the deceased is on his way to God for eternal life.”
The Pastor said death is the will of God and He has designed that for Ewunkem. “So, nobody can say no,” he said. “A contrary view will be a fight engaged towards God. And who can fight God?” he questioned.
He enjoined the Ewunkem family and friends to say thanks be to God for his (the deceased) life and pray that he should be our ambassador in Heaven. “Ewunkem has changed from the life of mortality to immortality. Now, we should be hopeful that all is not ended, while avoiding the devil as we pray for him. We’ve to keep our faith strong in God,” Assua said.
Catholic Men Association members put the casket of Ewunkem in to the hearse after funeral mass
The various tributes from family members to friends, colleagues, football managers and practitioners saw in Ewunkem a man who lived life to the fullest, God-fearing and an emblematic footballer.
However, the Mayor of Buea Municipality, Charles Mbella Moki, who doubles as the Chair of the Southwest Regional League of the country’s football governing body, FECAFOOT, launched a vituperative attack on the national executive of FECAFOOT for not being part of the funeral activities of a Cameroonian footballer of repute like Ewunkem and sneaking in some low profile officials only at the burial ground.
Bio-data
Ewunkem was born in the Bonaberi neighbourhood in Buea, to Bernard Ewunkem and Mrs Elizabeth Ewunkem, all deceased in 1948. He is the third child in a family of eleven children.
He did his primary school at Roman Catholic Mission, RCM, Yobomba, Buea-Town before proceeding to St. Joseph College, Sasse, Buea, in 1963 for secondary education.
The Ewunkem children and their mother in church during funeral mass in honour of their fallen dad & husband
Ewunkem will graduate from Sasse College and start working with the West Cameroon Public Service Commission, PSC.
After the 1972 Referendum, he was redeployed to the PSC in Yaoundé, a transfer, which he rejected and pursued his football career with Prisons Football Club of Buea, where he has been playing since 1968. However, he was asked to go to the Department of Community Development, then lodged in the Ministry of Territorial Administration, where he worked until 1980.
In 1980, he travelled to London, England and studied at the Centre of Economics & Political Studies. 1981, he will be back to Cameroon and continued working at the Ministry of Territorial Administration.
1984, he moved on to study at PAID-WA, Buea. After his one-year course, he graduated in 1985. Ewunkem, already working with the Community Development Office, continued, this time under a new dispensation, as the Community Development Office was moved to the Ministry of Agriculture, where he worked until his retirement.
Ewunkem, simultaneously, followed an emblematic football career with Prisons Football Club of Buea and the Cameroon Military Football Team. In 1975, he was part of the Cameroon Military Football team that played the World Cup in South Korea.
Upon hanging his playing boots in 1982, he will join the coaching staff of Prisons after attending a football coaching course in which the instructor was German-born Karl Heinz Weigan, one time trainer of the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon.
From the technical department of Prisons Football Club, he joined the Southwest Executive Bureau of FECAFOOT as Vice President and later the Treasurer. A position he held until his death.
Family Life
Ewunkem is married to Mary Ekangwo, his long time friend for 37 years. They are blessed with six children; five boys and a girl.
Amongst the medley of mourners who came to bid farewell to Ewunkem were his football contemporaries; Chief Joseph Antoine Bell, Chief Humphrey Tande Mosenge and Njipe.
