Senators’ Demise: Is SDF ‘prophecy’ coming true?

A prediction by a militant of the Social Democratic Front, SDF, party on May 26, 2013, during celebrations marking the 23rd anniversary of the party in Kumba, Southwest Region, seems to be coming true as death has plucked three Senators in 17 months of the Senate’ existence.

The militants had observed that, going by the ages of most Senators, the nation should be ready to lose most of them in the following five years 2013 -2018) within which the mandate of the pioneer Cameroon Senators is expected to expire.

During the same occasion, the then SDF District Chair for Kumba III and now Mayor of that same Council, John Kona Makia, had reiterated the SDF ‘prophecy’ to the press arguing that most of those who have become Senators ought to be having a deserved rest and not parading the corridors of the Upper House of Parliament.

Going by Makia, sending these old people to the Senate was pushing them nearer to their demise, whereas there are younger Cameroonians who can perform the same duties.

In just 17 months of its existence, the observation of the main opposition party seems to be coming true, as three Senators have bowed out in quick succession.

The thunderbolt of death first came with the sudden disappearance of Senator Lucas Fontem Njifua last April, two months after he played a pivotal role in hosting President Biya in Buea in his capacity as President of the Southwest Chiefs’ Conference.

Six months later, the career diplomat, erstwhile MP and former Minister and Northwest leading militant of the Cameroon Peoples' Democratic Movement, CPDM, Senator Francis Isidore Bochong Nkwain, passed on.

Then came the third, last weekend, of Senator Professor Stephen Njikong Yeriwa, who dropped dead on the same day his colleague was being interred in his native Kom in the Northwest Region.

It is worth noting that all three members of the Upper House of Parliament are all Anglophones and all of them have died in the nation’s political capital Yaounde.

Thus, the Upper House of Parliament is now short of three members: the Northwest Region has lost two of its 10 Senators and the Southwest Region has lost one.