By Emmanuel F. Sanosi
Shortly before the Social Democratic Front, SDF, celebrated its 18th anniversary, the national Executive Committee met at the national chairman's residence in Ntarikon to evaluate the state of affairs in the country. The meeting was preceded by a review of the shadow cabinet during which the SDF chairman gave new instructions.
The meeting had a nine-point agenda. The focus was on issues carried forward from the last two previous meetings during which the party was reorganised and reports from the various zones were heard. The report indicated that the North West and Far North provinces have made considerably political progress when compared to other provinces. NEC officials again condemned the presence of armed troops in Bamenda and other towns during last February's transporters strike. They said it was a gross violation of citizens' human rights.
On this point the party implemented an action plan following the SDF chairman's press release calling for a Day of National Mourning and Prayer. This plan, NEC officials admitted, was hastily conceived and was therefore not effective because the population took it to mean a one-day affair, not a continuous process as intended. The NEC meeting, among other things, reiterated a face-to-face meeting between President Paul Biya and SDF chairman John Fru Ndi, which Fru Ndi had initiated in a letter sent to the Presidency.
The response to the letter is still being awaited. On the high cost of living, NEC officials condemned government's "knee-jerk" reaction to the present food crisis. Alluding to the Minister of Trade and Commerce's publicity appearances on some television networks and his visits to some markets, the SDF think tanks said, "That is not how a government should operate." The SDF national assistant general, Mr Ofon lamented, saying that it was as if Cameroonians were a bunch of little school children who see any action of their teacher as sacred and the most correct. "We need to meet with Mr Biya and propose possible lines of action to him, especially as his ministers do not seem to grasp the gravity of the situation," he stated.
The SDF, therefore, proposed that the government should bring down prices by ensuring the regular supply of basis commodities such as rice, wheat flour and cooking oil. On the wave of arrests and detention of ministers and other state officials, including the former Chantier Naval general manager, Forjindam, and Minister Hamidou Marafa Yaya's being taken to court by the SDF; the secretary general said the SDF has taken preliminary action on how the cases should proceed. He intimated NEC officials have sent a request to the judiciary arm to act as arbitrary custodians to those arrested and to delve into the financial accounts of those implicated in embezzlement charges, "Failing which we shall consider the list published in some newspapers as authentic, because those lists coincide somehow with the official list," he stated menacingly.
Shortly after Forjundam's arrest, newspapers and audiovisual media in the country had a field day, making so much unnecessary fanfare of the arrest that the public began to wonder if the media attention was not a kind of government-sponsored campaign against the man, "who happens to be from the English-speaking part of Cameroon, especially at a time when the media would better serve the country by highlighting many burning issues such as the food crisis that is currently crippling the masses in the country.
By Emmanuel F. Sanosi
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