OPPOSITION CULTURE


The National Chairperson of the Social Democratic Front (SDF), Ni John Fru Ndi (left) speaking with the President of Cameroon, H.E. Paul Biya (right)


January 1961. Later, a majority of the members of the “Action Nationale” and the “Front Populaire pour l’Unité et la Paix” accepted Ahidjo’s appeal. However his scheme changed in November 1961 when he called for a Unified Party described as: “…a great national “Parti Unifié” in which Cameroonians would enter freely after becoming convinced about its desirability; and a party in which will prevail democracy, freedom of expression, and where several leanings would co-exist, it being understood, of course that the minority would uphold the options reached by the majority.” However, after the election and


by mid-1962, most of the opposition leaders had come to regard the call made by Ahidjo as nothing more than “a trojan horse for Parti Unique”. To them, Ahidjo was using the words “unified party” when he actually meant a “single party”, which the opposition parties were not prepared to accept. On 6 June 1962, Mayi Matip, Andre Marie-Mbida, Charles Okala and Bebey-Eyidi joined forces and


founded the “Front national unifié”. They issued a manifesto against


the fusion of all the political parties into a single party as professed by Ahidjo. They were arrested within two weeks, charged for the crime of subversion and were summarily tried and sentenced on 12 March 1962 to a two-and-a-half years’ prison term.3


On


appeal, the sentence was increased to three years. It was the beginning of the end of the embryonic opposition culture that had existed in French- speaking Cameroon.


On the other side of Cameroon Political maturity and the role of the opposition was much more articulated in this part of Cameroon. In fact before this time important political parties and pressure groups existed such as: The “Cameroons Youth League” (CYL), founded on March 27 1940, The “Cameroons National Federation” (CNF) formed in 1949, and The “Kamerun United National Congress” (KUNC). The “Kamerun National Congress” (KNC) formed in 1953 as an amalgamation of KUNC and


CNF becoming the first indigenous political party. A parliamentary system of government was in practice in the English-speaking part of Cameroon before the reunification of French-speaking Cameroon. In October 1961 there were only two main political parties: the “Kamerun National Democratic Party” (KNDP) led by John Ngu Foncha and the Opposition Party, the “Cameroon Peoples National Congress” led by Dr Emmanuel Endeley. Unlike the political situation in French-speaking Cameroon where Ahidjo’s party was a northern party and all the opposition parties were southern parties, the KNDP and the CPNC were not regional parties. Although the dominant leadership of the KNDP came from the grassfields while the leadership of the CPNC came from the forest zone, the supporters of both parties came from all the sections of the territory. The intense political anxiety that


reigned in this part of Cameroon gradually made way to a “general desire for co-operation and national


unity” as both Foncha and Endeley agreed to “forget the past and work together toward the achievement of a happy and prosperous Kamerun country”.4


Then came Ahidjo’s appeal


for a “Parti Unifié”. Indeed, Ahidjo had started creating structures of his UC Party in this part of Cameroon on the pretext that they were only for the French-speaking people living therein.5


Dr Endeley, being


well informed of the resolutions of the Ebolowa Convention of the UC Party of Ahidjo held on 4 July 1962, proposed to Foncha the fusion of the CPNC into Foncha’s KNDP thus constituting a force that could stand the weight of Ahidjo’s UC. Foncha however did not heed to this proposal. In June 1963, Ahidjo started a


strategic negotiation with Foncha for the fusion of the KNDP and the UC to form a single Party operating throughout the territory of the two federated states. The legislative elections of 26 April 1964 confirmed the supremacy of their respective parties in the respective federated states because they had been


The Parliamentarian | 2014: Issue Three - Cameroon | 9


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