By DOH JAMES SONKEY
Members of Parliament of the leading opposition Social Democratic Front, SDF Party have vowed to make sure that no deliberation takes place at the National Assembly until the House opens up discussion on the socio-political crisis that has paralyzed activities in the North West and South West Regions of the country for over a year now.
The crisis that has been raging on since October 2016 has not been discussed at the national assembly except when Hon. Wirba brought it up on two occasions while House speaker, Hon. Cavaye Djibril tried in vain to hush him down.
SDP MPs declared their intention last November 23, 2017 in the hemicycle of the Ngoa Ekelle Glass House when in an offensive move, they halted work at the National Assembly demanding that discussion on the Anglophone crisis be put on the table first before any other issue.
The drama broke out when SDF Parliamentary Group Leader, Hon. Joseph Banadzem, in a preliminary objection demanded for the halting of proceedings at the House and the Anglophone situation debated upon before the adoption of bills.
After an alleged refusal that resulted into heated arguments between the SDF MPs and the House Speaker, Hon Cavaye Yeguie Djibril, the entire SDF group took to the rostrum making the situation unbearable to even the House Speaker, members of the government bench etc so much so that work was suspended.
The SDF MPs took the rostrum hostage at the time deliberations were ongoing for the adoption of the 2016 settlement bill. They suddenly began chanting freedom songs such as “Paul Biya, Paul Biya… le pays va mal” while House Speaker retorted in a song that “Le pays va bien mais le SDF va mal”
As Hon Cavaye Yeguie Djibril and the CPDM majority abandoned the hemicycle due to the disorder created by their colleagues of the SDF, members of government, the judiciary and other invited guests equally walked away abandoning the House Chamber to SDF MPs who could not stop chanting “How many people Paul Biya go kill…,” “today, today…today may be the last day, we don’t know.”
In a chat with reporters at their demonstration in the hemicycle, SDF National Vice President and MP, Joshua Osih decried that “Nobody can claim that things are going on well in the country when we all know that the North West and South West regions have been suffering under the socio-political crisis for a year now. Work can therefore not go on here at the National Assembly as if the country is ok. How can we go on voting next year’s budget without first solving the problems that we have at hand, how will it then be executed if there is no peace and stability in the country.?”
It is worth noting that out of four bills initially planned for deliberation and adoption that day, only the Settlement Bill went through as Bills N° 1014/PJL/AN relating to the Constitutive Act of the Pan-African Parliament, N° 1016/PJL/AN relating to transparency on treaty-based investors and N° 1018/PJL/AN on air transport services are still pending.
The incident in the hemicycle was described as part of the SDF strategy to use all means to draw government’s attention on the urgent need to put an end to the one year socio-political crisis in these two parts of the country given that their boycott of the opening session of Parliament last November 14, 2017 seemed, as usual, to have left the CPDM dominated Parliament indifferent.