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Opinions of Thursday, 13 November 2014

Auteur: Boh Herbert

Is this a pledge from the SDF or just more words – more posturing from the SDF?

This is what Monday morning political quarter-backing looks like. Sadly I think the SDF is under-appreciating the enormous sacrifice consented by the Faso people in order to oust their dictator.

And one way of guaranteeing failure is for politicians elsewhere across Africa to presume that if their peers in Burkina Faso could do it (oust their tyrant), then they, too, can do it. Not true!

Success for the Faso Revolution was a factor of surprise, speed, mass mobilization, and luck. The last of these factors – luck – is likely more important than the first three. The security forces in Burkina Faso took sides in favor of the people, opting not to protect the tyrant and his regime; and the French who ruled the country via its puppet president froze in surprise.

Unlike the events of the last few days in Burkina Faso, the events of February 2008 in Cameroon led to over 200 civilians killed by the butchers that Yaounde hires in the place of security forces.

The SDF promise to oust the Biya regime in 2015 raises serious questions – among them: what revolutionary ingredients will obtain in 2015 in Cameroon that are currently absent? Granting those ingredients are in place, what does the SDF gain by announcing the revolution in advance? Is the goal to alert the regime or to surprise it? Why provide this heads-up to a regime the opposition hopes to oust?

Finally, if the SDF truly believes in political leaders being forced to go for overstaying their welcome at the helm, when is the SDF going to take that very plank out if its own eye?