At the turn of 1995, in a discussion with a party comrade , I said “ Limbe or Victoria is the soul of the SDF, Douala is the heart and Bamenda is the sprit.”
“And where is the head?” he asked me.
“Bamenda.”
“The day we lose the soul, would be when the party becomes a structure without a moral foundation. Everything would then be permitted, even if it is based on a whim.”
March 14, 1995
NB:
Seven years later, the SDF lost its head, and the spirit was in disarray after the political party lost its sense of purpose when its leader John Fru Ndi and Ngwasiri signed the secret pact with the CPDM/Biya regime, and in essence with the compradors of the French-imposed system, accepting the 22 seats in parliament and the few councils the regime allowed the SDF to have despite the more than 60% popular support the party commanded across the national territory of Cameroon. 80% plus of those seats it accepted were in the Northwest region (province).
The agreement which benefitted Fru Ndi and his clique, effectively cast the SDF as a regional or Northwest Party in the eyes of the international community and erroneously gave the impression that SDF comrades in the Northwest province would not act in solidarity with their SDF comrades in the other provinces who got cheated out of their seats by the election-rigging Biya regime/French-imposed system.
2002 thus became the year the SDF lost both its heart and its soul; it became the year the party also lost its head, became disarrayed, and became disconnected from its noble soul. That was the day the party lost Limbe, the essence or the soul of the struggle for the New Cameroon, leaving it in search of a new and pure body that became more distant to find after 2016.
January 03, 2025
Janvier Tchouteu is the author of Triple Agent, Double Cross
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