Manfred Nkafu Ashu Folifac (MNF) was a visionary intellectual, political leader and activist. An Africanist to the core, he was a leftist frontiersman and a relentless crusader for the emancipation of Nweh – Mundani, today Lebialem. His pan-Lebialem vision informed the sacrifice he bore through several decades and which eventually led to the realization of the Lebialem Division dream in 1992.

MNF was born in 1933 in Ntshelabay in the chiefdom of Belleh Ngeh, Lebialem Division, in the Republic of Cameroon to Papa Thomas Foulefeh and Mama Johana Ajoache. His parents took him from the highlands of Nweh-Mundani, today Lebialem Division to the coast at an early age in the mid – thirties.

Down in the coast, he did his primary education in Kake practicing school and kumba Government School from 1939-1945.

He obtained the Teacher Grades III and II Certificates (1951 and 1957) from the Government Teachers’ Training College, Kumba: Certificate in Cooperative Studies from Cooperative College, Ibadan, Nigeria (1960-1961); the General Certificate of Education A/L from the Cameroon College of Arts, Science and Technology (CCAST), Bambili (1962-1964); BSc (Hons) Economics and a Post Graduate Diploma in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language from the University of South Wales and Monmouthshire in the United Kingdom (1966-1970). He then entered Twickenham College of Advanced Technology, England to do Postgraduate Studies in Systems Design (1970-1971).

He had a chequered teaching career starting from 1948 that saw him in the service of the Cameroon Baptist Mission (CBM, 1948-1955), the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC, 1956-1960), Cameroon Protestant College (CPC Bali 1964-1966) and in the Government –Lycee de Nkongsamba (1973-1979), Lycee Bilingue d’Essos, Yaounde (1979-1985) and Cameroon College of Arts and Science (CCAS, Kumba1985-1988). He also served as a Cooperative Auditor from 1961 to 1962.

As a radical and student activist, he served as the pioneer President of the Student Union in CCAST Bambili (1963/64). In the UK, he served as the Vice President of the National Union of Cameroonian Students (NUCS), Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1970/71) with his friend, Barrister Sam Ekontang Elad, as President.

In July 1972, he was back in Cameroon and at the presidency of the republic working in the department of Systems Design. In 1973, he sought for a transfer away from his sedentary job at the presidency back to his old profession where he hoped to use his holiday periods very effectively in the pursuit of the Nweh- Mundani Cause.

His new posting took him to Nkongsamba in 1973. That was to become his base for the Nweh-Mundani Struggle. However, in Nkongsamba, MNF Ashu encountered yet a new problem, which to him was an affront on the teaching profession in which he had grown up. He wrote and circulated a critique: MISSION TO BAFOUSSAM (1974) which according to a reviewer was a “strong indictment of the inertia and suffocating bureaucracy that characterised the frenchified Cameroonian administration since 1960, the squalor and filth of the secondary schools east of the Mungo deliberately contrived by expatriate minds” ( Nzefeh Stanley Ph.d)

Though this essay earned him the title L’homme de plume (The man with a pen) among the rainbow staff of Lycee de Manenguba and the timid and tired elites of the area, it alerted Jean Fochive’s security “Maffia” that placed a security cordon around his activities henceforth. MNF Ashu would have to confront Jean Fochive again three times in his crusade for the creation of  LEBIALEM Division.

Mission to Bafoussam was followed by several other essays that included the address at the Ecole Normal Superieure in Bambili (5/5/1977) on SELF- RELIANCE AND EXTRA CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES IN OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM.

Equipped with this creed, MNF Ashu was a man prepared to undergo humiliations and sacrifices and to risk in his efforts to wrest Nweh-Mundani people out of the containment trap in Manyu politics. These tribulations characterized by blackmail, threats and intimidation culminated in the 1975 trial in the Military Tribunal in Mamfe with Barristers Gorji Dinka, Sam Ekontang Elad and Mrs Mariana Weledji taking his successful defence .

His crusade for the Lebialem people is the essence of his book entitled LEBIALEM STORY. Chapter Twelve of the book is an eloquent testimony of how the “mute” younger generation of LEBIALEM rose to joy on the news of the birth of their new division in the fall of 1992.

As often happens in the euphoria and the aftermath few would remember the sacrifices that he and his fellow crusaders made for the realisation of this hitherto dream.

Manfred Ashu retired from the public service on December 31st 1988. He was married twice and had eight children. He died on the 7th of April 2003 in the Kumba District Hospital at 2:24am.