When the Social Democratic Front (SDF) gathers in Bamenda this Saturday, 27 September 2025, to launch the presidential campaign of Hon. Joshua Osih, it will not just be kicking off an election season. It will be walking back into the heart of its own history which is a history written in blood, courage and sacrifice.
Bamenda is not just another stop on the campaign trail. It is the city where the SDF was born in May 1990, defying a one-party system and opening the gates of Cameroon’s multiparty democracy. That birth was not painless. Lives were lost in the early rallies that faced brutal repression. Supporters paid the ultimate price for daring to dream of a freer Cameroon.
It is also the city that bore witness to the ordeals of the late Chairman, Ni John Fru Ndi who was abducted, tortured, and humiliated at different points in the Anglophone crisis, yet never bowing to fear. His endurance and tenacity became the resilience of the SDF, and his voice, though often persecuted, remained the conscience of opposition politics in Cameroon until his death in 2023. His absence will be deeply felt on Saturday, but his spirit will undoubtedly hover over Commercial Avenue, where the party he founded now returns to seek fresh legitimacy.
The timing of this launch adds another layer of meaning. Only days ago, the Prime Minister inaugurated the Babadjou–Bamenda road which is the same stretch of highway Fru Ndi once blocked in protest against its deplorable state in 2016. That act of defiance, closing the Matazem toll gate, forced the state to acknowledge the suffering of the people and eventually spurred reconstruction. For the SDF to return now, just as the road is reopened, is to remind Cameroonians that real opposition is not built on slogans, but on action and sacrifice.
Bamenda is more than a cradle of history. This city is also a city scarred by conflict. Its streets still carry the echoes of gunfire, its people still carry wounds of displacement and fear. For the SDF to choose Bamenda is to say to its militants: we are alive, we are home, and we still belong here.
The stakes are high. Osih’s candidacy must now live up to this heavy heritage. The campaign cannot afford to be a nostalgic parade of the past. It must speak to the pain of a people who have bled for democracy, to a generation that has seen leaders fall, comrades disappear, and hopes deferred. It must connect memory to promise by offering clear solutions to insecurity, rebuilding public trust, and presenting a vision that honours the sacrifices already made.
Launching in Bamenda is bigger than politics. It is a pilgrimage. It is homage to the dead, respect to the tortured, honour to the fallen Chairman, and faith in the living who still carry the SDF flame. If Osih and his team succeed in turning that emotional capital into political momentum, Bamenda will not just mark the beginning of a campaign, it will mark the rekindling of a struggle that has always been bigger than one election.
By Bakah Derick for Hilltopvoices Newsroom
Email: hilltopvoicesnewspaper@gmail.com
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