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John Ngu Foncha

Cameroonian politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ174133 ↗
Source-derived summary

John Ngu Foncha (21 June 1916 – 10 April 1999) was a Cameroonian politician, who served as 5th Prime Minister of Cameroon.

Career

Foncha was born in Bamenda. He founded the Kamerun National Democratic Party (KNDP) in 1955 and became Premier of the British Cameroons on 1 February 1959. He held that position until 1 October 1961, when the region, renamed West Cameroon, merged into a federation with Francophone Cameroon.

From 1 October 1961 to 13 May 1965, Foncha concurrently served as 5th Prime Minister of Cameroon and Vice-president of the Federal Republic of Cameroon. He held the latter title until 1970.

In 1994, he led a delegation of the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) to the United Nations to request its backing of the movement's drive for greater autonomy in Cameroon's two English-speaking provinces. His grandson is Jean-Christian Foncha.

He died in Bamenda on 10 April 1999 at the age of 82.

Gallery

References

Ndi, Anthony (16 March 2014).

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “John Ngu Foncha” as cameroonian politician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around John, Foncha and Cameroonian.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1916, 1999, 1955, 1959—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1916-06-21. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with John, Foncha and Cameroonian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “John Ngu Foncha”, the useful work is to connect “cameroonian politician” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q174133. VIAF identifies the subject as 11539734. The Library of Congress control number is n94077363. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 1999, 1955 and 1959.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “John Ngu Foncha”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow John Ngu Foncha primary sources, John Ngu Foncha archive and John research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “John Ngu Foncha”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “John Ngu Foncha” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.