Background
Nzo Ekangaki was born on March 22, 1934, at Ngouti, in former British Cameroons
Nzo Ekangaki was born on March 22, 1934, at Ngouti, in former British Cameroons
Ekangaki was a highly articulate student, from his school days at Ngouti and Besongabang, through the Cameroon Protestant Church College at Bali, the Hope Waddle Training Institute at Calabar, Nigeria, and the University College of Ibadan. He finally took a Bachelor of Arts degree at Oxford, where he studied English Literature, History and Arts. After one year in 1959-60 as a civil servant, he went back to university, this time to Bonn, where he studied political science and diplomacy.
On his return in 1961 he was elected to the Legislative Assembly on a Cameroon National Democratic Party (KNDP) ticket. In 1963 he was chosen to be the CNDP’s secretary-general, against the wishes of John Ngu Foncha, who was the party president.
From 1962 to 1964 he was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. During his tenure of office he traveled extensively, in particular to Japan, Korea, Formosa, Pakistan, Iran and Lebanon.
Elected to the National Assembly in 1964, he was promoted to full ministerial rank in 1964 when he was made Minister of Public Health and Population; in the following year he became Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, an office which he held until his nomination to the OAU in June 1972.
In 1966 when all the existing parties were dissolved and Ahidjo’s Union Camerounaise was created, Ekangaki moved smoothly into the new group, where he became, almost from the start, a member of the Political Bureau and secretary for press, information and propaganda matters. He is the author of “An Introduction to East Cameroon" (1956) and “To the Nigerian People” (1958).
He was the right sort of conservative and conformist civil servant needed to replace Dialo Telli, a Muslim Socialist who represented a quite different era of OAU militancy. Ekangaki, an Oxford graduate, a Protestant, and a confidant of President Ahidjo, seemed the new versatile technocrat that was needed.
A supple and well-educated diplomat, he speaks fluent French and English and has considerable administrative ability.