"God implored to stop further deaths as Mayor is buried"

The remains of the Mayor of the Limbe III Municipality, Isaac Inongo Dalle, who died last July 6, were finally committed to their final resting place at the Newtown Cemetery on Saturday, August 9.

In the many prayers said during the requiem services that preceded the burial, there were fervent supplications to the Almighty to help curb the pace at which Limbe, recently, has been losing its elites.

From December, 2012, to July 2014, there have been too many sudden deaths, too soon.

In December 2012, it was the General Manager of the CDC, Henry Njalla Quan, who left. On August 11, 2013, the MP for Fako East, Hon Rachel Celestine Lyonga, quit the stage. And just before the year could turn round in 2014, on July 3, Dalle, yet a native of Bimbia like the first two and another political weight within the Limbe CPDM, died.

“When will this macabre departures stop? What is happening with us? What is happening to Bimbia (Limbe III)?” asked the 1st Deputy Mayor of Limbe III, Charles Namme Manga, in his eulogy to late Mayor Dalle.

Fako SDO, Zang III, who presided at the interment ceremony on behalf of the Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, Rene Sadi, noted that the death of Dalle struck (them) like a storm. “His departure has come to add to our agony,” he lamented.

Zang said Njalla Quan died barely two months after he was made SDO of Fako. And before the year turned round, Honourable Rachel Lyonga also died. “With all these deaths in a line, you can be able to measure the weight of our grief,” Zang said.

“The timing of his death is very disturbing to us, although not inexplicable to God who masters all the time at our disposal and is always ready to make us rest from our earthly burdens,” Zang said.

He prayed that God should intervene and help put an end to the disturbing happenings.

Mayor Dalle died at the tender age of 39.

“Why should this man, lying in this silent chamber, die at the prime of his age and career? Why should this sun set at noon instead of dusk” asked Rev. Manfred Ekum, one of the Pastors who officiated at the funeral service on Saturday, August 9.

“Today, we seem frustrated. But assured, because God is still on the throne,” he said.

He went further to urge mourners to stick to God, no matter the problems they might have. He said with God, “every knee tends to bow with the mention of the name of Christ.”

Meanwhile, to the wife, Yvette Dalle, Lilian Njalla Quan, asked her to put all her trust, henceforth, in God and prayed that God consoles her and leads her through the travails of having lost her husband.

“We want to pray to the family, especially the wife and children, that the good Lord is always with you and will remain with you,” she prayed. “You should count on him and put Him first in everything that you do. Never ever put Him at the background,” she said.

The Government Delegate, Andrew Montanga, on his art, said they had done all to rescue the Mayor’s life “but the forces of death were stronger.”

He remarked that “in matters of death and life, there is only one Judge, God the Almighty.”

He called on CPDM militants to use Dalle’s death as an opportunity to work for peace and harmony within their ranks.

Dalle, who was born on June 5, 1976, died on July 3, 2014. His educational career took him from GS Upper Costain in Tiko through GS Down Beach where he obtained his FSLC in 1987. He later went on to GSS Bokwoango in Buea where he obtained his GCE Ordinary Level Certificate in 1992.

He will later move on to CPC Bali in the Northwest Region where he had his Advance Level in 1994. Owing to the ill health of his father who later died, Dalle did not continue with his education. He soon joined the CPDM Party in Limbe. In 2000 and at the tender age of 24, he was appointed the Quarter Head of the Half Mile-Lumpsum Quarters.

At the age of 31 in 2007, he was elected the YCPDM President for Fako I (Limbe) a position he held until his demise in 2014.

Dalle’s elder sister, who presented his biography, noted that his troubles started off in 2009, barely two years after he had been elected as the 1st Deputy Mayor of the Limbe III Municipality while Samuel Mokate Esebou was Mayor.

Dalle took seriously ill and later got well. But a few months after he was elected Mayor, in October 2013, in replacement of Mayor Mokate, he took ill again in January 2014. His illness, this time, finally took him to the world beyond on July 3.

He leaves behind his wife, Yvette, his two kids, municipal colleagues and a host of friends and well-wishers to mourn him.