The human face of Cameroon`s opposition leader

In the beginning was the word

When the last presidential election in Cameroon took place in 2011, over ten opposition candidates stood against the Incumbent Paul Biya. The latter won. However, of all the country`s opposition leaders, it is worth noting that one has consistently been in the lead and stood the test of time since the reintroduction of multi-party politics in the country twenty five years ago. For that reason, he has become a household name in Cameroon. He is called Ni John Fru Ndi. In this analysis, I look at the human face behind the politician.

History in the making

It is a fact that Cameroon`s modern political history cannot be accurately written without mention of the man Ni John Fru Nd, who is National Chairman of the Social Democratic Front (SDF). In fact, ever since he forcefully launched the SDF 25 years ago at a time when the one-party state was the order of the day in Cameroon and the ruling CPDM party led by President Paul Biya was the only cock that could crow, so to speak, party politics in Cameroon has not been the same. I therefore feel that for the record, it is worth examining the history of the man from a view point that is not normally always a preoccupation to political analysts.

The handling of a hot potato

Although it can be argued that if Paul Biya did not pave the way for a return to multi-party politics in Cameroon in the first place by taking steps to allow freedom of expression including the creation of other political parties, Fru Ndi would never have been able to launch his party, the SDF Chairman must nevertheless be given credit for taking the bull by the horns and leading the launching of the party, at a time when talk of a party other than the CPDM was taboo. When he accepted to lead, many of those who stood with him were unwilling to “bell the cat”.

Some saw him as simply a facilitator who would create the party and then step aside for them to lead it. But as things turned out, more than twenty years after, Fru Ndi is still the leader. It has therefore even become difficult to talk about the party without talking about him.

A private man

Because of his long stay in office, it is difficult to now think about Fru Ndi without linking him to his political party. Yet, before he became the politician he is today, Fru Ndi was a private man, and even after having become a politician, he still has a private life. It is that aspect of his that I seek to bring out in this article. I am doing so from a personal angle. I am talking about Fru Ndi as I have known him personally.

The umbilical cord

John Fru Ndi and I both come from the Baforchu family of Cameroon. The family is a group that initially migrated from Widikum and settled in Mezam Division of Cameroon’s North West Region. The Baforchu family is made up of a number of villages (gazetted by the state of Cameroon) among which are Mbu, Santa Mbei, Baba II (in Santa Sub Division), Baforkum (in Tubah Sub Division), Banjah (in Bamenda III Sub Division), Bassamba (in Nde Division of the West Region), and part of Ngyen Mbo in Mbengwi Sub Division of Momo. I am of Mbu parentage, born and bred in Baforkum, while Fru Ndi is from Baba II but has spent a huge chunk of his life in Mankon Town.

First contacts

I first knew Fru Ndi when he ran one of the most influential bookshops in Cameroon, at the Commercial Avenue in Bamenda, known as Ebibi Book Center. Although he was not the only bookshop owner in town at the time, he was the foremost one, especially among Cameroonians booksellers. He did not only sell books in the bookshop but also distributed them in schools.

I cannot now remember whether he was the distributor to Sacred Heart College in Bamenda when I was a student there. However, I do recall that he supplied to CCAST Bambili in my student days there. I remember that I was a member of an informal group of students in CCAST who loved Fru Ndi`s English so much that whenever we saw him drive into the school compound, we would hurry to the administrative building just to hear him speak English. His choice of words and articulation were attractive and pleasurable.

Country representative in Cameroon

Years later, when I was working as a journalist at Africa magazine in London, the authorities of the publication decided to appoint a representative in Cameroon. I proposed Fru Ndi, Managing Director of Ebibi Bookshop. When he came to London for interview, I was the one who took him to the Chairman and Publisher of the magazine, Raph Uwechue, who then called in the Marketing Manager and the Accountant, Tarun Shah. It was a fruitful meeting.

Red carpet treatment

In the year the SDF was created – but months before it happened, I traveled to Cameroon and while in Bamenda, I visited Fru Ndi at the bookshop. I was surprised that the first thing he did was to hand me his office telephone and ask me to freely call my family back in London, greet them and tell them I had arrived safely in Cameroon. I was humbled by this gesture, considering the cost involved in making calls abroad, especially at that time.

But I accepted the offer, after which I thanked him heartily. He told me about the plans to form a new party. After I asked him a few questions, I was not satisfied and so did not offer to be part of it. He did not take offence. To this day, I have not joined his party, yet that has not in any way adversely affected our relationship.

Dancing with Fru Ndi`s wife

Before I left his office, he informed me that they businessmen in Bamenda were having a monthly njangi that evening at Ideal Park Hotel, which was owned by the businessman Patrick Vugah Boyo, popularly known as “P.V. Boyo”. He asked me whether I would like to come along. Before I could answer, he said: “Do come along! Be my guest!” So that evening I was with the cream of Bamenda`s businessmen at Ideal Park.

I realized that it was actually a get-together of everyone who was anyone in Bamenda. As it turned out, during the socializing part of the evening, Fru Ndi was the Master of Ceremonies. When he announced those to open the floor, I was further honoured in that he paired me to dance with his lovely wife, Rose, today sadly of blessed memory.

Who was Rose Fru Ndi?

Firstly, she and I were age-mates, having been born in the same year. She used to call me, “Akamantso”, an expression in Ngemba which means “strong man”. I have always had a special relationship with Fru Ndi but his wife Rose, was simply a sister to me. In fact, I considered her my twin sister and whenever I visited them at home, she gave me first class treatment.

Rose indirectly helped to solidify my relationship with her husband because years later when she was in Britain and I was in Cameroon and ran out of money, Fru Ndi willingly gave me money which I later refunded to her back in Britain. For the record, Rose was born in the Yango family of Santa Mbei (one of the Baforchu family clusters) in Santa Sub Division. Her elder brother, Francis Yango was a high profile Anglophone civil servant working in Yaounde, capital of Cameroon, in the heydays of Cameroon`s first and late president, Ahmadou Ahidjo.

An ideal couple

The Fru Ndi-Rose couple must have been one not just made by God but one ordained by him in his bedroom because, speaking now as someone who has studied astrology, I can affirm without fear of contradiction that the two were highly compatible with each other. John is a Cancerian (a Water Sign), and Rose was a Scorpio (another Water Sign). The twelve signs of the Zodiac are divided into four groups, each of which is governed by one of the four Natural Elements: Water, Earth, Air and Fire. So, each Element relates to three of the twelve signs.

The third Water Sign that goes with Cancer and Scorpio is Pisces. A rule-of-thumb in astrology states that when two people come from any two of the three signs of one Element but not from the same sign, their degree of compatibility is as high as 85 per cent from the day they meet each other. When two people come from the same sign, the compatibility drops to 50 per cent because they are too similar: familiarity breeds contempt.

There are times when they will be very happy with each other but also times when they cannot stand each other. There is always the undeclared battle for supremacy, with each person wanting to be boss over the other. But in the case of John and Rose, theirs was the kind that was bound to be so good it could be said to be paradise on earth. That is the highest degree from which any couple can start a relationship.

That being the case, the relationship between John and Rose was so intense that they could communicate with each other without using words. They could also easily read each other`s mind and know what the other person was thinking and even go further and solve a problem before it surfaced. Between them, there was an absolute and perfect union of hearts and minds.

The early departure Of Rose

When Rose died, I contacted her husband and sympathized with her. I also wrote some eulogy that was included in the funeral booklet. I did not – as you would imagine – fail to mention that “Ma Rose” (that`s how I called her) and I were age mates. When I arrived in Baba II during the funeral, I found Fru Ndi in the yard where festivities were taking place. There was the gun firing that usually characterizes funeral ceremonies in the North West Region.

He held a gun and was standing with some of his children. When I approached him and we heartily exchanged greetings, he said to me: “I am teaching my children how to fire a gun!” I felt that was as it should be because gun firing is part and parcel of our culture. But for Ma Rose, I felt nature had been unkind to her. She had left too soon, after so many years of going through thick and thin with the husband, as he faced the ups and downs of daring to create the lone opposition party in a country like Cameroon.

The anecdote from the veteran Albert Cho Ngafor

A.C. Ngafor as he liked to call himself was another baron of the Baforchu family and a bigwig not only in Bamenda but in the North West Province. He once recounted an interesting story about the SDF Chairman, John Fru Ndi. He was a contractor and the proprietor of one of the largest private colleges in the region. Unfortunately, he passed away some years ago. In his life time, he recounted to me an interesting encounter he had with the SDF Chairman.

He said when the Chairman`s father died and he Mr. Ngafor arrived at the compound, the Chairman was at the graveside with other people, spade in hand. The Chairman said to him as he stretched his hand to greet: “I am sorry Mr. Director (that was his pet name for Mr. Ngafor); my hands are soiled!”. He Pa Ngafor replied, while taking the spade from him to continue filling the grave: “I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, my own hands are about to be soiled!”

Fru Ndi and the strike he halted

Some three years ago or so, students of the National Polytechnic in Mile 6 Nkwen took to the street at the entrance to their institution and blocked traffic on both sides of the road. The reason was that a vehicle had knocked down one of them and they were demanding the authorities to secure the place with speed brakes.

Tempers were rising and the D.O. for Bamenda III Sub Division came to the scene but was unable to calm them. Mr. Francis Yong, the proprietor of the Polytechnic came and spoke to the students to no avail. He then started removing the pieces of planks the students had used to block the road. When he removed them and handed them to some of the students standing nearest to him to put them away, they would pretend to do so but when he was not looking, they would place them back on the heap further away.

Then Fru Ndi arrived, from the direction of Bamenda, heading towards Bambui. After asking someone what was going on, he walked straight into the crowd and went to where the ringleaders were standing. He said something to them, after which he now went over and started picking up the planks. Not only did students collect them from him and permanently put them way, they actually joined him in removing them from the road. In less than no time, the blocked road was once more useable.

Fru Ndi and his thoughts about me

I understand from a reliable source that while I was still a journalist working for the Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) in Yaounde, Fru Ndi proposed me to the then General Manager, Prof. Gervais Mendo Ze as Station Manager for the North West Regional Station in Bamenda. Incidentally, around the same period, The Former Prime Minister Simon Achidi Achu, also proposed me for the same post to the then Communication Minister and Chairman of the Board of Directors of CRTV, Prof Pierre Moukoko Mbonjo.

After Chairman Fru Ndi had given his reasons for the choice to the General Manager Professor Mendo Ze, he is said to have cracked a joke to the General Manager, by saying: “Although I am asking you to appoint Tikum Mbah Azonga to that position, I know he is not a member of my party. He is a CPDM person. But still appoint him because I know he is objective!” As it turned out, I never got that appointment in the end. But that is another story.

Fru Ndi as a cut above the rest

I believe that of all the current leaders of Cameroon`s opposition parties, John Fru Ndi is still the most credible, despite the dissentions and defections that have taken place in his party. One clear reason is that apart from the one election which his party boycotted thus handing victory on a platter of gold to Bello Bouba`s UNDP, Fru Ndi has come first among all of his peers in all other elections to date. Some years ago when I was still at CRTV, I covered a rally of the coalition of opposition parties in Yaounde. We journalists took the opposition members one by one from where they were sitting and interviewed them away from the crowd.

However, when we came to Fru Ndi, we decided that since he was their leader, we should interview him where he was sitting. When we started the interview, Prof. Hogbe Nlend of the UPC became so angry that he hit my microphone and it fell down as he ordered us: “Allez faire ça là-bas!” Realizing that there was trouble in the air, Fru Ndi got up and asked us to take him and interview him where we had interviewed the others.

As things turned out, shortly after that rally, Fru Ndi pulled out of the coalition and stood as a single candidate for his party. Interestingly, the number of votes he got outnumbered those of the other members put together. One would have thought that after such a clear lesson, the other opposition members would throw in their weight behind him and form a single stronger party to be led by him. But they did not. So to this day, the opposition is still a divided one speaking with too many voices and confusing the electorate.


Fru Ndi as a unifying factor

There have been calls for Fru Ndi to step down because he is said to have over-stayed his welcome. Even so, he has not gone. Were he even to go, there is no doubt that his coming into the field of Cameroonian politics has already greatly changed the political stakes and landscape of the country. He has helped to close the gap between Anglophones and Francophones. The proof is that there used to be a time when his party had more Francophone members of parliament (and I believe, councilors) than Anglophone ones, which is a hat trick, considering that he comes from the country`s minority Anglophone part of the country. Another point is that if the results of a certain presidential election were not tampered with, he would have won and would have therefore become Cameroon`s first Anglophone President, just as Barrack Obama has become the first Black President of America. In politics, nothing is impossible.

Conclusion

Surely, as a politician, Fru Ndi has made significant strides in his career and undoubtedly, his name has already been written in the golden book of Cameroon`s leading politicians. Even so, if his ultimate objective was to become president of the country, ten it is clear that he has not yet succeeded on that count. The big question is: now that the next presidential election is due in two years – or earlier if the Incumbent President Paul Biya decides to call early elections - can Fru Ndi make the long expected breakthrough?