Will the Social Democratic Front (SDF) Now Join the Ambazonia Struggle for Independence Recognition?

One of the causalities of the October 7th electoral charade in the name of a presidential election in the Cameroons is the Social Democratic Front party of Chairman Ni John Fru Ndi. It is a fact that the absolute boycott of that process by the Ambazonian people as a strategy not to continuously legitimize the colonial authority in Ambazonia got the SDF crawling in an abysmal performance in the elections. No elections took place in its supposed base of Ambazonia.

This is a justification of the argument that the SDF was and is a largely a Southern Cameroons party which for selfish and self-seeking reasons decided to abandon the mission and ideals under which it was founded – that of securing the interest of the people of Southern Cameroons under the colonial architecture. The SDF leadership has although this year refused to stand behind the majority voices of the Ambazonian people. They have been playing a hide and seek game with the people while romancing the colonial agents of the CPDM in the background. That is why the party could even go as far as isolating their own fearless member of parliament – Honourable Joseph Wirba, who had decided to stand by the wishes of the people he represents in the Kangaroo Parliament in Yaounde.

All the calls for the party to pull out its members from the colonial parliament in protest against the genocide on the sovereign people of Ambazonia proofed abortive. All their many efforts at the hands clapping institution to get the Southern Cameroons into the agenda of the house did not also yield fruits. But they were not still willing to pull out of the colonial assembly.

And so, the people saw the colonial elections as a way to not only delegitimize the authority of the colonial government over Ambazonia but to also delegitimize the SDF party, which has all through the years benefitted from the political and electoral largess of the Ambazonian people. It was therefore not strange to watch the battery of SDF lawyers at the Kangaroo Constitutional Council trying to argue that the elections be canceled in Ambazonia because they did not take place at all.

During the Constitutional Council debates, SDF lawyer and former President of the Cameroon Bar Association, Barrister Sama Frances, referring to Ambazonians, told the Constitutional Council in his submission that “I will follow them if they continue with their secession fight.” The Barrister was trying to justify why the presidential elections should be cancel considering that Southern Cameroonians did not participate in the elections.

Barrister Sama told Mr. Clement Atangana that if the elections were not canceled, the Ambazonian Restoration forces and Ambazonian nationalists would have legitimacy in fighting for their independence. This according to him will be legitimate because they will have every reason to tell the world that they did not give the Republic of Cameroun any presidential mandate over Ambazonia and so their rights are not represented in that colonial architecture.

At least, members and defenders of CPDM party had acknowledged before the Council that there was low participation in the Ambazonia, with just about 20 percent participation rate (Even though it was a fat lie). “Amba boys will rejoice if you cancel this presidential election and they will also rejoice if the president of the Republic come out, talk to them and listen to their cry” Barrister Sama told the Constitutional Council.

At the end of the day, the conscientious voices from the SDF lawyers and other members of the Southern Cameroons Bar who spoke at the hearing were thrown into the dustbin. In fact, going by the language of the president of the Constitutional Council, all their submissions were unfounded, baseless, inadmissible and lacked evidence.

Will Barrister Sama and his SDF crew now join the restoration struggle as the council fails to listen their genuine calls for it to save what they call their beautiful country from self-destructing? The people can only watch the next moves of the SDF and other opposition parties in the colonial republic, as French Cameroun’s Constitutional Council prepares to declare the Etoudi King winner of the so-called election.

James Agbor, BaretaNews Political Analyst