What SDF after Fru Ndi?.

14/06/2023 - Yaounde

The emblematic National Chairman of the Social Democratic Front, SDF, the late John Fru Ndi, has variously been described as charismatic and a legendary opposition leader in Cameroon. This is thanks to the launch of the SDF in Bamenda, on May 26, 1990, against the whirlwind of assault from then monolithic single ruling, CPDM party, at the time.

His rallying cry of "Power to the people and equal opportunities," was swallowed hook, line and sinker by many Cameroonians, especially the marginalised people of the North West and South West Regions. The slogan was seen as a beckon of freedom and justice.

As Fru Ndu was called to glory late on Monday, it would be hypocrisy to write that he bequeathed the SDF, strong and united to fulfil the dream of ‘change’, which the party’s Founding Fathers, many also of blessed memory, had envisaged.

Fru Ndi was at the apex of his popularity and power in the nineties when at his first presidential election in October 1992, he scored 36 percent as against 40 percent for incumbent President Paul Biya. 

Fru Ndi, who claimed his victory was ‘stolen’, scored 86.3% in the North West and South West Regions, which were then his main political base. But with the advent of the crisis in the North West and South West Regions, the party had less than 15 percent of votes in the two Regions, signifying its ebbing existence. Even before the conflict, his performances at the presidential polls kept tumbling.

Just like the ruling CPDM is criticised for sit-tight leadership, Fru Ndi remained on the chair despite all its democratic frailties. His charismatic popularity, with time, and the affliction of absolute power, soon changed the vision of the SDF. 

In early 2000, the now defunct The Herald newspaper, some of whose then editors are on The Guardian Post editorial team today, in an editorial titled: "SDF going, going...." raised alarm that if the Chairman continued to sit on the leadership like a king, the party would soon be history.

But not wanting the SDF to die in his hands, literarily, he announced his intention to throw in the towel. He never succeeded and died as Chairman of the party.

His First Vice President, Hon Osih Joshua, would normally become the interim and eventually the successor. But he is perceived by critics as lacking in the political dexterity of the Chairman.

In the absence of John Fru Ndi, who was still ill in Switzerland, the First Vice President, Osih, chaired a session of the National Executive Committee, NEC, on June 3, devoted to preparations for the party’s elective convention, which some articulate observers had said would be a requiem for the SDF, even before Fru Ndi had been called to the Lord. 

The meeting was a trial run for the man who appears to be the future leader of the party, which is in crisis with the expulsion of over three dozen top members. 

The expelled members had, in what is known as the Mbouda Memorandum, indicted Fru Ndi and some close aides of dictatorship, financial unaccountability et al. Rather than reconcile and audit the party's accounts as the Mbouda meeting had called for, they were expelled using an obnoxious constitutional provision which fired suspected decedents without trial.

The protesting influential party leaders went to court to challenge their expulsion, but at the last NEC meeting, Osih did not only describe them as inconsequential but censured them for going to “CPDM courts".

But what a paradox for Hon Osih to portray the courts in such political affiliation. He has been criticised by independent minds as being more of the presidential majority fold than an opposition when he joined CPDM parliamentarians in 2021 to petition the US Congress over the armed conflict in Cameroon.

At its first National Executive Committee, NEC, meeting after that faux pass, the SDF resolved that Osih was not right in signing the letter with CPDM lawmakers. NEC then, in its resolutions, said it “frowns at the signatories of the petition written to the American Congress by some members of the National Assembly, including the First Vice National President of the party, Hon Joshua Osih, and tasks them to, with the same vigour, cause parliament with the CPDM obese majority and the Head of State to bring the Anglophone problem to the floor of parliament for discussion”. They did not budge.

Prior to that NEC meeting, Osih, said he had no regrets signing the letter, and went on to challenge former party mate, Hon Nintcheu and MRC party leader, Maurice Kamto, who had indicted him over the letter signed by him and predominantly MPs from the ruling CPDM party.

So, with that affiliation to the CPDM, how could Osih be blaming his former party members for going to a "CPDM court" even if that is what they are? Isn't that political hypocrisy?

Barring some afflatus of a twist, however, Osih, who came a miserable fifth with less than five percent of votes at the last presidential election, down from the traditional second position the SDF had occupied in previous presidential polls, his succession to Fru Ndi, could just be the last nail on the party's coffin. It is not a cherish legacy for the legendary Fru Ndi. Rest in peace Chairman.