Taking Cameroon's Opposition SDF Party Quitters to Task
Taking Cameroon's Opposition SDF Party Quitters to Task
The other day I was in my office around 08:00am trying to organize the different News assignments when a tired looking man stumbled in with a dog-eared folder. He said he wanted to see the Station Manager but both the office and the secretariat were still locked. The security guards had informed him that I was the chief of News and Programmes, and he wanted me to look into his problem. When I tried to find out what his problem was, he told me he wanted to hand us a copy of his resignation letter from the Social Democratic Front. He had just resigned from the SDF party and he wanted the radio to talk about it.
I took the folder and studied its contents carefully. The man was not an SDF member of parliament. He was not a municipal councilor. He was not even an electoral district chairman or the chairman of any SDF ward in the country. He was an ordinary member of the party but had become fed-up with his own ordinariness! It was as clear as daylight that his resignation did not have any news value except to confirm that it was now trendy to resign from the SDF, and that many people who quit think that the media people are excited to talk about them.
The "key" figures that are moving out of the SDF party may well give the impression that Ni John Fru Ndi's house is crumbling. That Cameroon's leading opposition party has become like a place that is beseeched with those inside suffocating and trying to break loose. It looks like politics has become so "cheap" and at the same time so "sour" that resigning from a political party even for an upstart is considered as an achievement.
The SDF quitters have their common denominators. They were once "blind folded" but have now come to realize that the SDF is a dictatorship with Pa Fru as the only cock that is allowed to crow. Any other "ugly" head with or without dreadlocks that rises above water is simply decapitated with the infamous Article 8.2 or shown the door. The deserters complain that instead of fighting for "power to the people", the SDF shifted to "power to the founding fathers" and has simply settled for "power to the chairman". The quitters also admit that they were daydreaming but now realize that the SDF leadership is worse than President Biya whom they want to replace. That such a sit-tight leadership has enriched itself at the expense of the masses and has caused the party to lose steam and focus thereby dashing the hopes and aspirations that the Cameroonian people once invested in the opposition in general and the SDF party in particular. Such deserters conclude that the Social Democratic Front, SDF party with its present leadership and hard line position cannot bring about the change that Cameroonians are craving for, even if president Biya were to willingly step-down today or honour the inevitable rendezvous with his ancestors.
When one looks at the number, timber and caliber of personalities who have resigned from the SDF over the years, their common denominators or cultural universal are not only the "good" reasons brandished for quitting the chairman's "sinking" boat. The SDF quitters excel in their inability to create any political impact out of the SDF. Apart from the Anthropologist Dr Charly Gabriel Mbock who left the SDF went back to the UPC and got elected as a member of parliament no other SDF "divorcee" has made any political breakthrough. Some have created political parties that fizzled out of existence in less than two years. Others have created NGOs, which have not advanced beyond a name. Many have gone solo trying to play "political analyst" or media consultant. Some have cross-carpeted to the CPDM party where they are missing in action in the "dog-eat-dog" syndrome. And a good number have simply given up on politics. Do they still blame Ni John Fru Ndi for their failures? Do they now admit that the fact that there is still an SDF from which others like them can resign today is proof of the chairman's visionary leadership and foresightedness?
It is said that those who live in glass houses should not undress themselves in broad daylight. Cameroon has registered more than 200 political parties, if twenty years later it is only the SDF that is "selling" newspapers with stories of people who have resigned is it proof that the SDF leadership failed or succeeded? What happened to the other political parties in Cameroon? If all those high profiled personalities who have left the SDF were more credible leaders than Ni John Fru Ndi, how come they have not succeeded in creating even only one political party that can cause Cameroonians to rekindle their participation in the political life of the country?
Ni John Fru Ndi created his impact with no independent radio and television stations in Cameroon, no mobile phones or SMS, no Citizen Journalism and no INTERNET with online communities like Yahoogroups and Facebook. He traveled across the country, met the people in their remote world, spoke their language, empathized with them, and earned their trust and sympathy. He cut across social strata to win the respect and admiration of the haves and the have-nots, the center and the periphery, the Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.
At the same time some people in the SDF saw the party as a TGV to power, fame and prestige. They saw the SDF popularity as proof that they could now walk on water. The party was a gentle horse on which to ride to the trappings of the national cake. However, when the light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be something else, they quickly "talked" their way into trouble or say they are jumping out of a sinking ship. Even those who knew they could not swim made the jump and got drowned in end.
Many SDF deserters who may be suffering from clumsy excitement or "selective myopia" have failed to understand the hostile political environment in Cameroon. If the present SDF leadership with its endurance and perseverance could not make headway within the context where elections are hatched and patched by die hard militants of the ruling party what do the quitters hope to gain that can be greater than ridicule? If Pa Fru could not get the SDF to win elections in places where the names of qualified citizens were erased from voters list for fear that they could vote for the opposition and cause the sons of the soil to lose appointments to some juicy positions in the country, will the deserters be able to do better? When the deserters think that the SDF is wrong in not willing to collaborate with ELECAM because it is infested with staunch CPDM militants, do they know how barons of the status quo have secretly recruited their political godchildren into ELECAM without advertising the jobs for all qualified Cameroonians to compete?
Quitters never win and winners never quit! I have no problem with people who quit from the SDF nor do I care how long those who persevere take to come to power. Those who live in glass houses and choose to throw stones must however remember that the world is watching. If you go tell it on the mountains that you are leaving the SDF because its chairman Ni John Fru Ndi has failed then you should also take the challenge and be a better leader, with more credibility and create a greater impact. The proof of the pudding is whether or not it leads to a running stomach.
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