BECKY NDIVE PASSES ON

Another Radio icon has died leaving Buea in shock, her fans in grief and tears.

Njome Becky Ndive, the famous matriarch of “The Debate” on CRTV national television, has quit the scene. Becky Ndive, as she was popularly known, gave up the ghost at about 11 pm on July 12, 2009 in the Buea Regional Hospital Annex after a protracted ailment.

She retired from the CRTV in 2005, had since then been living in Buea shuttling between her Great Soppo home and her mother’s house in neighbouring Ekona. Becky leaves behind many offsprings amongst whom Oscar (eldest son and military officer), Miriam (in the USA ) and Suzan inBuea. These three, she had in her first marriage with the then Prime Minister of West Cameroon, Dr Emmanuel Endeley.

The cold hands of death have thus snatched a renowned professional journalist who put in 30 years on the microphone. Becky Ndive was the first ever female Chief of Station in CRTV Buea. Her professional achievements cover over 10 programmes some of which she conceived. Notably: “Wake Up Show”, “Luncheon Date”, “Woman To Woman”, “Living With AIDS”, “Children With Auntie Becky”, “Monday Show”, “The Debate”.

Becky Ndive stated in a news magazine “ICI” (Les gens du Cameroun ) number 47 of October 2008 that “l used The Debate programme to narrow political cleavages in Cameroon”. This was in the early 1990s when the Cameroon political scene was under brimstones.

Before joining CRTV in the 1980s, Becky worked in Nigeria after schooling in the Eastern Baptist College of Philadelphia (USA) where she read Sociology. In 1978, she was recruited among Nigerians to teach in Jos. While teaching there, she tried her hand at Radio and TV until in 1980 when she returned to Cameroon and was immediately employed at the then Radio Cameroon. At CRTV she worked along side other household names like Luke Ananga (late), Hannah Mojoko Tamko and Lucien Mamba (late).

She also reinforced her professional skills after undergoing in-house and out-houses training which took her to the BBC, Radio Netherlands, Germany and Ghana that eventually transformed her into a household name.

In effect, this famous lady started as a Grade Three teacher trained in Saint Francis Kumba from where she moved to CCAST Bambili. Before her travel to the USA where she read Sociology, she got married (at 17) to Dr. Emmanuel Endeley.

Becky rose from rank to rank and became the Station Manager of CRTV Buea in 1992.

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