The national chairman of Cameroon’s frontline opposition party, John Fru Ndi, arrived at the Yaounde conference centre at about 9:20 a.m. On entering the hall, the chairman was immediately offered a sit at an obscured corner at the balcony of the hall; amongst some general managers of state corporations. He was sitting directly in front of Jean Jaques Ndoudoumou, the former general manager of ARMP.
About one hour later, a protocol officer approached Fru Ndi and asked him to leave the seat for a ‘more convenient one.’ This time around, Fru Ndi was brought a little closer, but behind government ministers. He was placed directly beside the rector of the University of Yaounde II, Oumarou Bouba. That position kept him a step away from an army general.
Just few minutes before President Biya’s arrival, the same protocol officer approached the chairman again, asked him and all those sitting around him to march along the ceded passage to a different corner of the hall. But the protocol guy met a stone wall this time around.
The chairman’s response was a definite No. He resisted all pleadings to vacate the seat. Attempts by the protocol to get a beautiful young damsel caress the chairman’s legs and get him out of the seat ended up in fiasco.
While others who were sitting on the same row with him heeded the orders, Fru Ndi deliberately isolated himself on the row. The chairman had also told journalists that he refused to be screened by security operatives at the entrance of the conference centre.
