By Doh James Sonkey
The funeral program of the late National Chairman of the opposition, Social Democratic Front, SDF party, Ni John Fru Ndi will be organised next July 27 to 30, 2023.
The revelation was made last June 24, 2023 by the First National Vice President of the party, Hon Joshua Osih as he chaired a heavily attended National Executive Committee meeting at the party’s Centre Regional Secretariat at Olezoa in Yaounde. NEC members agreed that party activities will have to be suspended until the late National Chairman is buried.
Before his preliminary statement, Hon Joshua Osih requested for a minute of silence in memory of the National Chairman, Ni John Fru Ndi who slept in the hands of the Lord last June 12, 2023 at 11:3pm.
Hon Joshua Osih said “It is a very sad moment for our party. What I can say is that his legacy, from the uncountable amount of letters of sympathy, of condolence received by the party and the family is bigger than all of us put together. I think the only way we can uphold his legacy, is to make sure that we work even more than what we have been doing so far to win those elections he would have loved us to win that are coming up. That means that for all of us, we need to double our efforts to uphold our National Chairman’s legacy. Best way we can mark his passing away and the best way we can acknowledge to the world. Let me put it clear, none of us could have been sitting here without the SDF and the SDF wouldn’t be what it is today without our National Chairman.”
The First National Vice President said the meeting will end with a condolence visit to the National Chairmen’s family at his Nkolfoulou residence towards Soa by NEC members. He indicated that “the corpse of the National Chairman will be removed from the mortuary on the July 27, 2023 and there will be an ecumenical service at the Warda Multipurpose Sports Complex and all NEC members must be there, from there, the corpse will be taken to his Nkolfoulou residence. On July 28, 2023 we will be leaving the Nkolfoulou residence to Bamenda with several stops in the Centre and West regions. In the afternoon of July 28, 2023, there will be a grand rally at the Commercial Avenue in Bamenda. We will go to the Musang Presbyterian Church which was his church. The corpse will go to his Ntarikon residence for an all-night vigil and on Saturday July 29th, 2023 we will move to Babaju where an official funeral will be organized at the Baba II Primary School just opposite his compound where he will be laid to rest.”
He called on all NEC members to mobilise as much as possible and to put in their energy and time to make sure they have a successful funeral at the end of July especially as a lot of foreign dignitaries have indicated that they will be coming for the funeral. The SDF party elective convention was postponed probably to October 2023.