Senior executives of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) who entered into open war against the party leadership, officially announced that they would not take part in the meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) convened next weekend in Yaounde.
The national president has convened another NEC meeting this weekend in Yaounde. ”We want to inform the general public (…) that we will not participate in this NEC meeting so as not to further legitimize text violations and other illegalities. We do not want to sit in an NEC where the national president will come to impose his will on everyone, “the members of this group said during a press conference held yesterday in Douala.
These SDF executives, the main opposition party, explain their bravado by the fact that “the mandate of the current NEC has expired since February 18, 2023, but there is no sign of a congress to renew the NEC“. Yet, they add, “our statutes stipulate that application forms for positions within the NEC must be available several months before the congress. However, the mandate of the current NEC has expired as we have indicated, no mention is made about the said congress“.
This is not the only grievance that the SDF G27, made up, among others, of MP Jean Michel Nintcheu, 2nd Vice-President Paul Tchatchouang, or former Secretary General Jean Tsomelou, makes to the party leadership. The G27 deplores the fact that the party’s fundamentals have been flouted. “Since the last presidential election, we have been constantly fighting for the homeless to regain its vitality of the 90s. This fight was not easy internally, because the current hierarchy is desperately trying to brake the four irons to gradually transform the homeless into an empty shell with the sole and only purpose of benefitting from certain privileges of the existing regime”.
Main targets of the homeless “mutins”, chairman Ni John Fru Ndi and his protégé, the 1st vice-president, Joshua Osih. After the latter’s debacle in the last presidential election with 3% of the vote, the party’s worst performance, two commissions were created to ease the tensions arising from this under performance: a reconciliation commission and a Political Action committee.
According to the G27, the reports of these committees were presented to the NEC with recommendations that were all adopted. “It was clear from these reports that the real problem was the management style of National President Ni John Fru Ndi and 1st National Vice-President Joshua Osih. Rather than applying the recommendations, the national president curled up and, in a suicidal flight forward, allowed himself to unilaterally make anti-statutory appointments within the NEC, “said the G27. For these party rebels, the national president and his first vice-president are thus manoeuvring to “make an artificial majority at the NEC in order to create a fictitious balance of power in the perspective of the party’s next congress”.
