2025 presidentials: How Osih’s SDF supports CPDM!.

He is introduced in the tract as "candidate for the presidential elections of 2025". Joshua Osih is going to meet the Cameroonian diaspora in Europe. 

The publicity stunt indicates that there will be a rally only in Brussels, Belgium. 

Among issues to be discussed are federalism, Anglophone crisis, education, opposition coalition and dual nationality.

Other topics will include "relaunch of the economy, human rights in Cameroon, single counter for the diaspora, problems with the CFA and international tensions".

After Hon Osih was controversially elected Chairman of the SDF party, taking over from the party’s legendary leader, the late John Fru Ndi, in October 2023, he undertook a nationwide tour. 

It is thought that the European trip is to consolidate his authority in the political outfit perceived as an "Anglophone party" that has lost its initial bearings.

The announcement of the trip and content has, however, raised eyebrows and unanswered questions.

How can he be a candidate of the party when its convention has not been held to designate a candidate as required by its statute?

Renowned media mogul, Alex Gustave Azebaze, has also questioned: “Why is it on the poster of his trip to Europe that we surreptitiously discover that Joshua Osih is once again a candidate for the presidency of the Republic? Why does he not formally announce it in Cameroon...? Has he gone through the primaries?

If his party finally approves his candidature, which is a foregone conclusion, Hon Osih will be running for the second time after his 2018 debut where he came out on a humiliating fourth position after incumbent Paul Biya of the CPDM, MRC candidate, Prof Maurice Kamto and now embattled PRCN leader, Hon Cabral Libii.

Both Kamto and Libii belong to two opposition alliances but Osih has not associated himself with any, giving the impression that he is a pawn in the ruling party's chess board.

Even when he was elected in a controversy that led to the resignation of key supporters of the SDF, some commentators said he would turn the party into a "CPDM Section" or a member of the Presidential Majority. 

His announcement to contest the next presidential race is therefore interpreted as supporting the ruling party to have a smooth ride in 2025.

The accusation of his affiliation with the ruling party stemmed from a memo signed in 2021 by some 74 CPDM parliamentarians, with him as the only opposition official, to the United States Congress, criticising their denunciation of human rights violations in the North West and South West Regions. 

Osih's announcement as a candidate for the SDF whose main fief of the North West and South West Regions has been deserted will no doubt serve the Machiavellian interest of the ruling party for an easy victory.

 The Guardian Post in its mission to promote the ideals of democracy in the country has had cause to reiterate that after years of a one-party rule in Cameroon, where many freedoms were restricted, John Fru Ndi launched the SDF, in 1990. The mission of the "founding fathers" of the party was to "change" the system and give "equal opportunities" and "power to the people".

Charismatic Fru Ndi attempted to enter Unity Palace through the 1992 presidential election and received about 36% of the vote against 40% for incumbent President Paul Biya, according to official results. 

But the SDF claimed that their candidate's victory was "stolen". That performance under the umbrella of the Union for Change produced the opposition's best results so far.

With presidential elections coming up in October 2025, the opposition and Cameroonians have been yearning for change in public commentaries. 

They have expressed the need for a coalition to root off the CPDM from power. 

Two groups have been formed and are said to be in talks to merge.

When Hon Osih was asked about joining an alliance after taking the mantle of the SDF, he said: “It is premature and a little bit out of topic today to be dragging the SDF, which is a serious party into discussing coalition options, whereas those options today are not the priority of our party”.

He added that: "We sincerely believe that where Cameroon stands today, we need to seriously work towards implementing or pushing an agenda for a political transition in Cameroon that is inclusive to all the actors...So, we are for a winning Cameroon and not for a winning individual”.

His own alliance is with labour unions. "We are putting in place a very solid left front in Cameroon with all ideologically left-thinking parties. We have already concluded a frame-work with the major trade unions in Cameroon that represent nearly 78% of all workers in Cameroon... the doors are still open for more trade unions to join us”. 

No action is known so far about the labour alliance, which seems to be a pipe dream.

Has the SDF lost its scruples to the point of relying on trade unions, some of which the CPDM government has often termed as illegal? 

Do members of the trade unions not also belong to political parties where there is a distinction between labour matters and political issues?

When the SDF was launched, Fru Ndi explained that its prime objective was geared towards addressing the pervasive marginalisation of people of the North West and South West Regions and kept its distance from the ruling party on policy issues.

When Osih signed the controversial CPDM memo to the US Congress in 2021, his party's National Executive Committee, NEC, embarrassed by the action, asked him to withdraw his signature or table the conflict in the two Anglophone Regions for a debate in parliament. He didn't budge. 

Question: Is it in Europe that he will discuss the Anglophone problem as advertised in his tract?

If Hon Osih doesn't want the SDF to follow Fru Ndi to his grave, he should take what remains of the party into an opposition alliance in gestation.

With the ruling party in office for over four decades and the incumbent Head of State at 91 and still being urged to take another seven-year term, which is the right of some Cameroonians, others believe there is need for change.

The economy is reeling, headlined by mountains of debts, record inflation, unemployment, shabby and grossly inadequate infrastructure. 

For Hon Osih to want to run for the presidency will be nothing short of overtly supporting the incumbent to the glum and frustration of the remaining supporters of the SDF who still swear by Fru Ndi's ideal of "change".

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3199 of Wednesday August 14, 2024