Before
the convention started, the calls for the SDF to either cancel or move the
convention to another region got to an unprecedentedly high level. Being a
party created in crisis with enormous security challenges, the SDF Chairman
gave the impression he was use to threats declaring that no matter what his
convention will take place. The interpretations were varied with an immediate
call for a three days ghost town as a sanction to the SDF Chairman for disrespecting the call.
As the delegates, journalists and observers from other parts of the country trooped
into Bamenda, only taxis, commercial motorbikes and some fruit sellers could be
seen on the streets. No one can say whether the locking of shops for three days
was as a show of hatred for the SDF and his chairman or fear of the unknown
since the calls for ghost towns are always accompanied with threats.
This did
not move the Chairman. Probably the ghost town rather made work easy for his
security operatives who hard little effort battling with issues of infiltration
or the market population. At the close of his three days meetings, like the
agama, Fru Ndi says “only the SDF could dare to organize a convention as such a
time like this as if to provoke the CPDM that could not organize a simple march in
Bamenda on December 8, 2016 at the wake of the Anglophone crisis.
With this,
suggestions that the SDF had very close ties with the CPDM were reduced but
what about the Gregoire Owona and Government involvement in the convention? From
his declarations, Cameroon has a governance issues which if address via the
creation of a Federal state of government, living in Cameroon will be an
exciting experience which is at variance with separatists ideologies.
With no major issue to worry about during the convention, the Fru Ndi position is no doubt outstanding but as to how he handles that in the future with his party is his personal business. He has addressed an open letter to the President of the republic which clearly puts the position of the SDF on the ongoing crisis on public space.