Victor Ndime Ngolle, the third male child in a family of six children, was born to Camillus Ngolle and Theresia Esunge of Nhiang village in Muambong – Kupe Muanenguba sub division on December 23, 1948.

By this time, Cameroon was already mission territory with missionaries of the Catholic Church actively present and ministering in different areas. From them, he received baptism at what is known in our day as Baseng Parish. From then on he became a child of God and an heir to the kingdom of Heaven. He was a ‘mass-boy’ (acolyte) at the local church. This period of life nurtured his faith as a believing Christian, and from his earliest years, he learnt from his parents basic human values of love, of hard-work, of honour, and of sacrifice for others– values which would resound as he lived.

After his elementary (Primary) education, during which his performance was truly remarkable, his gifted and sharp mind desired more. It can be said that the overriding drive of his life was to pursue education – and he did so relentlessly. He didn’t cower from it even much later in his professional life. He is a man who earnestly believed that education carried the promise of self-improvement and with it social progress. This key component is the one thing that set the domino for the evolution of his life’s trajectory, and anyone who came across him met an educated man in the true sense of the word – a cultivated person. The seriousness with which he took education is indicative of the significance he would have given to his own existence: to live is to learn and by learning we discover the deep meaning of our responsibility as human beings over things and over people – above all, our responsibility toward God the maker of all things.

Sometime after his primary education, his abilities were recognized by a benefactor whose farm he managed and for whom he did book-keeping for a given period. Here, the virtues of honour seen through honesty, and hard-work through accuracy earned him the trust of this benefactor whose name unfortunately has fallen into oblivion.

During the years 1973-1978 he attended FESS TECHNICAL COLLEGE, Muyuka – an institution whose name few would remember today. Right after completion of his secondary education there, he gave classroom lectures for two years from 1978-1980 within the very same walls (or institution) that had schooled him. He taught PRACTICAL MATHEMATICS, MATHEMATICS –A, ENGENEERING SCIENCE, TELECOMMUNICATIONS PRACTICE, TELECOMMUNICATIONS PRINCIPLES –A. His easy familiarity with figures and his fluency in spoken English earned him high esteem from his students, as he himself once fondly recalled.

In 1980, he got a Foreign Scholarship Award for higher professional training from the PHILIPS INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION TRAINING CENTER (P.I.T.T.C) Hilversum in the Netherlands. He applied himself diligently at learning until May 1982 when he completed his studies.

In September of that same year he began working for PECTEN CAMEROON COMPANY, an offshore Petroleum Company, as a Telecommunications Technician. He was passionate at his job for about three decades. He was diligent at his duties, as former colleagues have attested.

He married Enongene Jackline Epote in September of 1988, a benign young woman, whom God had earlier called to glory in June of 1996 soon after the birth of their fourth child. Her testament was that he ‘take care of the children’. He looked after his family materially, and especially spiritually by having his children learn the catechism and receive baptism. 

Victor was gentle natured, sharply focused, a practical man who though reticent was articulate in speech as he would correct his children to right pronunciation of the word ‘sword’ and of the word ‘chocolate’. He didn’t like his children watching TV when they should have been studying. He was something of a workaholic, loved reading as well as appreciating art through music in which he had nurtured an interest. Particularly, for him, life meant work and work meant life, the two were practically convertible.

From his retirement in 2011, slowly but surely in response to the grace of God – not without the agency of certain persons – he started to ‘make his way back’ to the faith he had not practiced for most of his active life to the glory of God and of his great Mercy. Even when his health began to decline steadily from 2021 occasioned in no small way by ‘the changing fortunes of time’, he continued to receive the spiritual support of the church: multiple holy communions and holy anointing which strengthened and renewed his soul, anchoring him on the promise of God, and of blessed assurance.

At this stage of his life he often said, “thank you” in a manner suggestive of holiness, of deep connection with the transcendent – “maekenag m’aesah” in Nkosse (“thanks that is holy” in Bakossi language). Drawing from his victories and his losses, he became humble and appreciative toward God for the trajectory his life had covered. At a surprise birthday celebration orchestrated by his children way back in 2021 he expressed these sentiments.

On December 21, 2024, three days to his birthday, when his children and close family members were gathering together to give thanks to God for his life in joyful hope of a fresh new beginning, God called his son Victor Ndime Ngolle back home to heavenly glory, the ‘Muambong-boy’ who wanted almost more than anything to go to school to learn. His passion for learning had brought him this far. He often said, that “…The mind will only produce what you give it…”

We hold, that more than anything he has ever accomplished – said and unsaid -Papa dies a Christian.

“Indeed, for your faithful, Lord, life is changed not ended, and when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, as an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.”