Joshua Osih confirms John Fru Ndi’s withdrawal, a situation which is paving the way for him to become party president.
The meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC), the political bureau of the Social Democratic Front (SDF), was chaired on Saturday 3 June in Yaoundé by the party’s vice-president, Joshua Osih . Chairman Ni John Fru is still abroad for treatment. The meeting was an opportunity for Vice-President Osih to reiterate that the historic leader of this opposition party will not be a candidate to succeed him at the elective congress scheduled for 29 July. “The national president of the party has informed the party at several times and at several levels that he will no longer be a candidate. This is a historic congress. It’s probably the first time there’s been a change at the head of a political party since the advent of the multi-party system. I’m talking about a political party with a presence in the institutions“, declared MP Joshua Osih.
Charmain announced in February 2021 that he would step down as party president. This decision was reiterated in December 2022 at a press conference in Bamenda. But in the opinion of many analysts, the troubles that the party is going through, with the rebellion of several cadres against the Chairman and his Vice-Chairman, are likely to delay his withdrawal from the presidency of the SDF.
In fact, several SDF executives grouped within the “G27” have denounced decisions by the Chairman which, according to them, tended to pave the way for Joshua Osih, the runner-up, towards the presidency of the party. All members of the G7 were also excluded. “The party statutes are clear. You do not take the party and its members to court. We have provisions for settling our disputes internally. So if you decide to go to court instead to settle a dispute you have with the national president or the national executive committee, that means you are outside the party. We have seen their self-exclusion because they have taken the party to court over decisions that were taken democratically within the NEC. When you get agitated, you put yourself outside the party“, declared the Vice-President on 3 June.
