Brief Biography of Henry Njalla Quang

Mr Henry Njalla Quang was appointed to the post of Managing Director of the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) in 1998. CDC is the largest agro-industrial establishment in West Africa and second employer in Cameroon after the government. Mr Henry Njalla Quang was born in 1949 in the village of Wovia. Wovia is a village located on the outskirts of the city of Victoria (Limbe). Although a native of the fishermen and farmers village called Wovia, via his maternal ancestry, Mr Quang is one of the many offspring of the many black Africans whose ancestry can be traced to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Fernando Po, currently known as Equatorial Guinea and the Caribbean. Whether he is of Sierra Leonean or Liberian ancestry, as generally claimed, it is not known. But one thing is certain, he like many others, who now claim to be natives of Victoria, the reality are in fact that, they are either progenies of freed slaves from Britain and the Americas, who settled in the afore mentioned countries or are progenies of the many other black Africans, caught on slave ships by the British navy patrolling the Gulf of Guinea. Another singularity with the city of Victoria and its surrounding coastal villages is that, most of those who claim today to be aboriginals are not. The only people who can pretend to be bona fide aboriginals are those from the hinterland villagers surrounding Victoria. In other words in Victoria proper the preponderant majority of those pretending to be natives are. And this destroys the ethno-regionalist xenophobia policies of the government floated in the 90s. And concerning Blacks who were caught on slave ships, they were freed by the British and then settled along the coast of Southern Cameroon’s and on the coast and on islands of eastern Nigeria and the Nigerian Niger Delta regions in particular.

Political activists and an opportunist

Mr Henry Njalla Quang studied in his native region and furthered his education in Nigeria and also in Sierra Leone, precisely at the prestigious Forahbay University College of Freetown, where he graduated with a Masters degree in Industrial and Mechanical Engineering. He came back to Cameroon in 1975 and was employed at the National Ports Authority of Cameroon, with headquarters in Douala. There, he held a senior management position until he was appointed General Manager of CDC in 1998. His appointment came just two years after his predecessor and political rival, Peter Mafany Musonge was appointed Prime minister. Mr Quang is a political activists and an opportunist. He first attracted the attention of the officials of the ruling CPDM party, in 1990. At that time, the Francophone ruling elites were looking for a possible replacement of former Prime Minister Sardou Hayatou. But the idea was dropped because, even though he was/is English-speaking Cameroonian, he was nonetheless from the south of Anglophone Cameroon, otherwise known as the South west province. For in Cameroon, there are several unwritten laws and rules. One has it that, even though Cameroon is officially a bilingual English and French-speaking Cameroon, French remains the official language. The second also has it that, nationals from both regions are equal and could assume any function in the country. But in reality, English-speaking Cameroonians are barred from strategic posts of responsibilities in Cameroon such as ministry of Finance, Defence and Territorial Administration (Interior).