Vote massively to curb rigging- Osih.

Addressing a mega rally in Mutengene, on Friday, June 13, the SDF national chieftain and lawmaker, recounted how he won a parliamentary seat in Douala, where he was challenged by 20 other candidates.

Frowning at growing voter apathy while fronting massive voter registration, Hon Osih Joshua was blunt that elections cannot be rigged when people vote massively.

The Mutengene rally, it should be said, came after similar others, organised in parts of the country, to mobilise support for the SDF, ahead of this year's presidential election.

The countrywide tour is part of activities to celebrate SDF's 35th anniversary, which began on May 26, 2025.

Speaking at the Mutengene rally, attended by thousands of SDF supporters and sympathisers, Hon Osih stated that: “Our enemies today are those who don’t vote…since 1992, when the SDF ‘won’ the election, Mr Biya has never crossed 2.5 million voters...this is less than 10 percent of Cameroonians. It means that 10 percent of Cameroonians have been determining the fate of this country for more than 40 years. The only way to change that is to vote”. 

Osih was categorical that those who do not register and vote in the upcoming election “have no right to complain” about bad roads, power cuts, unemployment, inflation and insecurity.

He used the Mutengene gathering to call on Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, and others who have relocated from where they initially enrolled, to approach ELECAM and change their polling stations, before the exercise comes to an end on August 31, 2025.

The rally coincided with the second anniversary of the demise of the Founding Father and pioneer National Chairman of the SDF, Ni John Fru Ndi.

Hon Osih used the Mutengene meeting to pay glowing tributes to the late Fru Ndi, describing him as a charismatic and sacrificial leader, who worked for the introduction of democracy in Cameroon.

Osih, who is SDF’s flagbearer for the forthcoming presidential election, reminded Cameroonians of his party’s historic role in shaping the country’s democracy.

“35 years is not a small time…we realised that most voters today were born after the SDF and many people unfortunately believe that multiparty politics started sometime in 2015/16, with the democratisation of the social media. So, it is our duty to inform Cameroonians that the liberty that we have today was fought for by the SDF. That is why you, the media houses, exist today and nobody else can tell that story better than the SDF,” he said.

He used the event to sell SDF's manifesto for the 2025 election, with particular emphasis on how they will handle the economy, education, and the form of State, if elected, come October this year.

He elaborated on SDF's plan to give back power to the people, by instituting a federal form of government, which will operate within a semi-Presidential State.

“...for the first three years in power, we are going to start a national conversation that will start with reconciliation and will end up with a constitutional conference that will propose a new constitution to the people of Cameroon. We want to present it in the form of a referendum and we really strongly hope we will win that referendum and that SDF's agenda for a federal government in Cameroon will be put in place,” he said.

Osih added that they are instituting a “semi-presidential and federal form of State, in order to give back power to the people. And so, most of the complaints that we have today; be they those that brought up the crisis in the North West and South West Regions; or be it whatever we see round the country with tribalism and so on, will be put to rest in an institutional form”.

In education, he said the SDF will provide free education up to Advanced Level, and step up its quality. 

To curb unemployment, Osih said the SDF will capitalise on industrialization; setting up industrial zones across the country to process and transform everything that is produced in Cameroon. 

He envisaged that this will drastically boost the economy, noting that it will help the SDF create not less than three million jobs within the first year, if he is elected.

On the Anglophone crisis, Osih said the SDF will end the ongoing violence in 100 days but will take three years to make necessary constitutional reforms to permanently resolve the Anglophone problem.

“We are going for a major election in October…I was telling the people of Mutengene that they have the choice between voting for the conflict to continue or voting for it to end. We definitely want the conflict to end. There is no political party in Cameroon...that knows the South West and the North West Regions of Cameroon better than the Social Democratic Front,” he concluded.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3476 of Tuesday June 17, 2025