By Doh James Sonkey
Indications are strongly emerging that Hon. Joshua OsihNambangi, National Chairman of the Social Democratic Front, SDF, party elected during the party’s last ordinary convention in October 2023 may well be the SDF candidate in the forthcoming presidential election.
The National Executive Committee, NEC, of the party that met in the refurbished and renovated secretariat in Olezoa, Yaounde on Saturday, October 12, 2024 upheld the resolution of the last Ordinary Elective Convention which states that in case the party is unable to organise an extraordinary convention ahead of the 2025 presidential election, due to financial or other constraints, NEC shall proceed to designate the party’s flagbearer.
Proponents of the motion during the convention, argued that the party was just from burying its founding chairman, Ni John FruNdi and was organising the elective ordinary convention and has been left dry on its finances. They argued that it would be too expensive to call an extraordinary convention in 2024 or 2025. The motion passed and was adopted as a resolution.
Infact, the resolution escaped the scrutiny of most members who were primarily focussed on the election. During the NEC meeting when the resolution was read, few could challenge because NEC cannot challenge a resolution of the Convention which is the highest decision-making organ. Only another convention can go back on its previous resolutions and deliberations.
For now, there has an been no indication that Osih will be challenged. While NEC affirmed the Convention resolution which it cannot however challenge, no definite position was taken on the candidature. The NEC meeting preferred to focus on the all impotatnt issue of getting 75,000 trusted polling agents to be trained and equipped to man polling stations all over the country.
Osih hints on SDF’s “attractive” political programmes
After the almost 10-hour heated meeting, Hon Joshua OsihNabangi disclosed that, “we at the SDF have been working very hard and are finalising our political programmes which we will be presented to Cameroonians in an event that will be held in the coming days.”
According to Osih, “The programme centres around 4 pillars and 11 key points. One of the cardinal dispensations is that, we propose a the holding of a constitutional conference and we need to go into a political transition that will take a maximum of three years.”
Hon Osih explained that, “the constitutional conference will be able to usher in a new social pact with Cameroonians to bring back confidence in them. We will work very hard to make sure that the new Constitution of the Second Republic for which we have been fighting for 34 years comes out with a federal constitution with parliamentary powers to leave the dictatorship in which we find ourselves now.”
He made the disclosure as he was presented the refurbished Secretariat of the SDF with a new coat of paint, during an important ordinary session of the National Executive Committee, NEC meeting of the opposition Social Democratic Front, SDF party, last October 12, 2024, at the Centre Regional Secretariat of the party at Olezoa in Yaounde.
Presided at by the National Chairman of the SDF, Hon Joshua OsihNambangi, the new look Secretariat which will now serve as liaison for the party was also presented to NEC members.
Reacting to the issue of coalition, Hon Joshua Osih said, “it is unfortunate the plan of the CPDM is working perfectly that is to try to make Cameroonians to understand that in absence of a coalition nobody can beat Mr Biya. The coalition is not done around individuals, the coalition is done around ideologies and political programmes. The worse thing that can happen in a country is when two parties come to power, one that is the Social Democratic Front that wants federalism and another for instance. The two will not be able to work together and that will be catastrophic for the country. We first of all have to publish our political programmes and secondly will see how those political programmes can be merged one into another and see where we can make consertions.”
Talking to the press on the occasion, SDF National Chairman, Hon Joshua Osih decried that, “I think the position of the SDF party was made known at the time. We think it is an abuse of our democracy to use legal means to put in place illegitimate processes that unfortunately thwart our democracy. Cameroonians need to understand that we cannot have a developed country, economic growth, peace and all those things we are looking for if we do not have democratic principles that are respected. And it is only by being able to hold those in leadership positions accountable, that we will have the capacity to build this country”, Osih said.
According to him, “Many Cameroonians will not understand that the bad state of their roads, that the war going on in the Far North, North West and South West regions, that millions of young people are not able to find a job, that foreigners are unable to invest in our country, that having a land certificate does not mean anything etc, that all of that comes from the fact that they are not going to vote. That they are being refused their fundamental rights to hold those governing this country accountable.”
He reiterated that, “each time it is done, it is an attack on our democracy. You have a disposition in the law that permits the President of the Republic to do it but that permission we expected him in 2020 to tell us that ‘with the war going on in the North West and South West regions, I want to extend the mandate because elections cannot hold.’ We saw it in 2018 when the Constitutional Council said elections cannot hold so let us push it ahead. That is why those dispositions are there. They are not there so that the man can try to see what can be of benefit to him to stay for life in power. So, we need to understand that each time individual or collective liberties and democracy is being attacked, that means that we are pushing our agenda of development backwards and so everybody is a victim.”
The SDF National Chairman added that, “You cannot complain of the bad state of the roads, lack of a job, no water or electricity and every other thing when you don’t understand that it is your road, water or electricity and you just simply give a mandate to some people go and manage it for you and if they manage it the wrong way, you have to have the opportunity, possibility to sanction them and put other people in place who will probably do better and if they don’t do better, you sanction them again and that is what democracy is all about.”
Hon Joshua Osih told reporters that, “You also have the responsibility to educate, tell people that this thing is not about the mandate, it is not about 6 months, not about 1 year but about thwarting our democracy and it is something uncalled for.”