Statement: Fru Ndi press conference on state of the nation

PRESS CONFERENCE OF THE NATIONAL CHAIRMAN OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FRONT YAOUNDE, 11TH DECEMBER 2014

PRELIMINARY STATEMENT

Dear Representatives of the press and journalists,

Distinguished Guest,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am pleased to be with you once again and you know how much I cherish our symbiotic relationship and the eminent role the press plays in a very hostile environment for most of you as well as the exceptional value you bring to our democracy.

These encounters allow us to engage in a dialogue over issues affecting our country. You will agree with me that it is even more so important for us to meet today especially considering the tense political atmosphere and the high risk for social unrest that our nation faces today and which is slowly but surely bringing our country to its knees.

The Biya junta, in its usual style, deposited a bill that is on its way to get promulgated into law. This guillotine law that will make most of you and most of us face the death penalty for undertaking the activities we carry out today takes our country back to 1962 and makes a mockery of the hard earned democratic advances that we have obtained so far, very often at the cost of blood and life.

Dear friends of the press and journalists,

Let us trace our steps to where we find ourselves today. The continuous stifling of our democratic process to this point of obtaining a kangaroo system has been well crafted by this junta. By blocking all the necessary avenues and means by which a truly inclusive democracy with strong institutions and good laws can be put in place in order to ensure a smooth transition in our country as well as perpetual national unity, peace and prosperity, they have ensured that they hold the progress of the country hostage in the interest of one man.

This well calculated process capitulated in 2008 when the Biya junta imposed a constitutional manipulation on Cameroonians to keep himself in power for life. To achieve this, he ruthlessly crushed 148 Cameroonians to death while jailing about 2’800 others with summary prosecution because the whole country came out to save the nation. The bill against terrorism that is being promulgated into law today would without hesitation condemn all 2’800 of those prisoners to the death penalty. That is what this law sets out to achieve.

It is counterproductive to think that liberties must be stifled to battle terrorism. Economic growth and progress as well as political stability in a country can only be forged by good laws and good governance. The absence of these on the contrary is one of the root causes of terrorism in its most dangerous form.

It is a lie to make us believe that the target of this draconian law is in reality terrorism. We see in it a means to set the scene for other electoral coups and to avoid what happened in Burkina Faso recently.

It is ridiculous to believe in the twenty-first century that the death penalty, which in itself is unjust, inefficient and counterproductive can be used as an efficient instrument of political repression.

The SDF is against terrorism and strongly so. The SDF understands that terrorism has to be fought with appropriate and determinant means but the SDF also understands that terrorism can be prevented. Prevention is always better than cure.

Thirty-two years of this Biya regime has precipitated our nation to the verge of collapse. Far too many regions of this country are left for themselves and survive between helplessness and hopelessness.

What is happening in the Far North today is as a result of government’s neglect of the region to disease, epidemics, flooding, illiteracy, malnutrition, hunger, cholera, lack of basic health, water and sanitation, absence of infrastructure, abject poverty and total abandonment. The Biya junta’s only interest in this region and many other regions in our country is to harvest votes. This regime is directly responsible for what is happening to us today.

It is for some of these reasons that Boko Haram crossed into Cameroon and found fertile grounds and recruited thousands of young chronically unemployed Cameroonians who are today being used to fight the Cameroon army. As long as Boko Haram can continue to recruit our youth for as little as FCFA 15’000 per month and use them against us, we will not solve our fundamental problem of insecurity. We can win the war over Boko Haram but that is not the way we can dream of winning the war to save Cameroon.

If the government is looking at ways and means to resolve our current security crisis in the Far North and the East of our country, then we need as a matter of urgency, to address the social injustice, inequality and unbalanced development that affects too many Cameroonians and many parts of Cameroon today. It is evident, year after year that the regime’s public investment caters for an unbalanced development because the Biya junta keeps for itself the wealth of the nation.

The budget of the state that has turned into a pro-forma for embezzlement neither respects the laws of the state nor minimum standards of regional balance. Year after year, there is an ever increasing allocation for a costly government lifestyle while social allocations for the needy are barely being taken care of. It is this imbalance between classes and regions that fuels insecurity in Cameroon and as if this is not enough, the 2015 budget – the real one – further accentuates this by establishing more tax for the poor and less tax for the rich.

During the recent ministerial council session, three years after it last held, Mr Biya launched his 2018 campaign by announcing an Emergency Plan that will span from 2015 to 2018 and cost 925 billion FCFA. This Emergency Plan, called upon to save the socio-economic state of emergency of our country has no precision on its timings nor on the means and ways with which it will be financed.

Furthermore, this curiosity of a budget comes during the last days of parliament passing the 2015 Finance Law based on a socio-economic programme presented two weeks earlier by the Prime Minister and that makes no mention nor allusion to this new emergency.

This is a clear fact that the Biya government so far has lost track of their promised road to emergence in 2035 (Vision 2035), has completely diverted away from the planned growth curve as expressed in the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper (GESP) and a further affirmation of the lack of trust and collaboration between him and his government.

This emergency plan, made-up of a catalogue of social measures with a strong psychological impact on the population and with no clear impact on economic growth is radically out of budget and neither financeable in the present state of affairs of our public accounts nor bearable by our future generations.

Presented as a personal engagement of Mr Biya for the 2018 elections, the emergency plan has as its sole objective to ameliorate his image marred by bad governance, corruption, embezzlements, insecurity and the absence of law and order that culminates into the current state of insecurity in which he has brought us as well as the hunger, malnutrition and abject poverty to which he has enslaved us.

Dear friends of the press, journalists,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is evident that we are facing an end of reign era which is rendered even more so complicated by the absence of institutional transition instruments that are capable of guaranteeing a political transition. The fact that we are ruled by a gerontocracy makes things even more so complicated. An emerging economy cannot be built with a crumbling leadership in a country at the verge of collapse. An emerging economy cannot be built with emergency plans.

The inconsistencies of this dying junta which is sacrificing the future of our country for its own survival clearly demonstrates that in the absence of a fully inclusive approach there is little hope for Cameroon.

The SDF is, as always, available for a fully inclusive dialogue that can help avert our crumbling nation from collapsing. We are available to help put in place a fully inclusive avenue for a clean political transition and thereby fully play our part as the leading opposition party in Cameroon.

This necessary political inclusivity is NOT a call for the SDF to share in government but rather a call for the Biya regime to finally put in place an inclusive platform of advancement between itself, the true opposition and the responsible civil society.

If we need to go further in order to save our country from total collapse, we will not hesitate and leave no stone unturned. No avenue unexplored.

I thank you very much for your kind attention.

Ni John Fru Ndi, National Chairman