Marie-Thérèse Assiga Ahanda

Marie-Thérèse Assiga Ahanda was a Cameroonian novelist, chemist, and paramount chief of the Ewondo and Bene people. Early in life, Ahanda worked for the Chemistry Department of the University of Yaoundé. She later moved to the Republic of the Congo with her husband, Jean Baptiste Assiga Ahanda, and took to writing. When they returned to Cameroon, Ahanda became an elected delegate in the National Assembly of Cameroon, a position she held from 1983 to 1988. Ahanda became the Ewondo paramount chief in 1999. In December 2000, she began renovating her father's palace at Efoulan, Yaoundé, a project that cost an estimated 150,000,000 francs CFA. Ahanda is the daughter of Charles Atangana - paramount chief of the Ewondo and Bene peoples under the German and French colonial regimes - by his second wife, Julienne Ngonoa.