ONE LEGAL CONVENTION FOR A SINGLE AND LEGAL SDF
Throughout this week (May 29 to June 2nd), almost all newspapers in the country have been busy reporting what they have called SDF crisis, double Convention or fracture. Le Messager, which some weeks before had in a headline announced that Chairman Fru Ndi was to follow the Fon of Balikumbat to jail, was so angry that the government did not take side in favour of the dissidents and had let the SDF behave as if Cameroon was not a state of law. Alex Gustave Azebaze was all the more upset that he was convinced (although he cannot quote the section!) that SDF constitution provided that when NEC does not exist anymore, the National Advisory Council takes over and runs the party. He doesn’t understand why the SDF has not yet been dissolved and why “vandals could still be allowed to race for power” in this country. When it then titles, without crosschecking, that Colonel Ngafor has been arrested for murder, Le Messager thus seals the fate of the party and that of its officials and puts an end to “the laxity of the government after the SDF violence against Souleymane Mahamat and co. in 1998, the MP Clement Ngwasiri and the journalist Eric Motomu last April, etc.” Le Messager has its own idea about the SDF. One cannot change it!
While the Mfoundi SDO in Cameroon Tribune reassures that “ the authors of the fighting have been arrested by the forces of order and that they are being heard at the Yaounde High Court” , William Mandio and Henriette Ekwe in their Le Front have already gone against the presumption of innocence to arrest Diboulé’s murderers. These are barrister Mbah Ndam, Hon. Yoyo Emmanuel, Che Philip and Chi Ngafor. What an anticipated verdict without any possibility of appeal, quite in line with their deep and secret wishes! Le Messager and Le Front are teaching us a very good lesson of professional journalism !
Nevertheless, we know that besides people who rejoice of what has happened, who openly or subtly express their hatred or who have some scores to settle with the SDF and its leadership, there still remain Cameroonians of good faith who are eager to know how things could have gone that far. They need facts and provisions from our party Constitution and by-laws to really understand what happened. To them, we dedicate the following lines!
HAS THE SDF HELD TWO CONVENTIONS?
It is impossible that the SDF could have held two Conventions, on the same dates, in different places, convened by two different organs! If this has been the case, therefore, one of them is automatically illegal. The Convention is the supreme organ of a political party. This is why the organ and the procedure to convene it are very carefully codified in the party Constitution. As concerns the SDF, one should refer to section 12.2 (b) that reads :
“The National Convention may be held at any time, at the request of the National Chairperson, the National Advisory Council, on a referral matter in conformity with Section 11.5k or no less than two thirds of the members of the National Executive Committee with voting power and/or two-thirds of the Provincial Executive Committees in Cameroon”
As concerns the National Advisory Council, let’s go back to the above mentioned Section 11.5k. It states:
“In the event of a conflict between a resolution of the National Convention or the National Executive Committee and the opinion handed down by the National Advisory Council, the matter shall be referred to the National Convention which shall decide the matter by a simple majority.”
Section 12.2b is crystal clear. The National Convention cannot be convened neither by the National Chairperson, nor by the National Advisory Council, nor by the two-thirds of the…., but only at their request! If they can only request the convening of a Convention, that implies they have no power to convene it themselves!
As concerns the National Advisory Council, things are unequivocal: In the event of a conflict between a resolution of the Convention or NEC and the opinion handed down by the NAC, the matter shall be referred to the national Convention. If words have kept their meaning, everyone of good faith will understand that “referring a matter to a Convention” is very different from “convening oneself a Convention” to settle a matter! In the spirit of the SDF Constitution, the Advisory Council refers to the Convention as one would refer to a Court, a different and independent body, run by others, on which one has no grip.
It is important here to point out that the SDF Constitution only provides the Advisory Council the right to hand down opinions, which is the duty of all advisory bodies in the world. The power to take decisions and resolutions is devoted to the Convention and the National Executive Committee. Advice is just an opinion. It can be taken or not.
If the National chairperson, the National Advisory Council, the two-thirds of NEC members and/or of the Provincial Executive Committees can only request the convening of a Convention, who then has the powers to convene it? It is the National Executive Committee (NEC) that convenes and organizes conventions! It is NEC “that is responsible for the nation-wide Administration of the Party and the putting into effect of the decisions of the National Convention (section 11.3a); NEC “ that appoints the date and the place where the Convention shall be held (section12.2a)”, that prepares the agenda for the National Convention; which prepares and submits reports and budget for the consideration of the Convention; which initiates policies and programmes for the consideration of the convention; which makes rules for party discipline and loyalty which shall be binding on all organs and members of the Party; which have power to make standing orders; which makes party electoral regulations, subject to ratification by the Convention…( section 11.3b (I,ii,iii,v,ix); NEC whose ruling shall be final as to the interpretation of the SDF Constitution and by-laws! (Section 24). As one can notice, only NEC has the statutory powers to convene and to organise a Convention.
Has the so-called Yaounde Convention been convened and organised by NEC? If the answer is no, therefore, it was anti-statutory, illegal, and could not of course be a SDF Convention at all! It is all the more illegal that the Mfoundi SDO declares in Cameroon Tribune (May, 29, 2006) that the so-called convention was forbidden by the Yaounde II District Officer on March 31, 2006! Barrister Ben Muna who leads the dissidence says the NEC mandate had expired since 2003. We shall not come back to the various obstacles that prevented us from holding the 2003 elective Convention, nor on the debate that took place in NEC and the consensus that was met in order to postpone that event. It is part of our internal affairs.
We all know that there can’t be a sanction without a special law section referring to it. Can Ben Muna quote in our constitution a section providing a sanction in case an expired NEC would not have been renewed? Can he quote a disposition providing that if an expired NEC has not been renewed the party would be hijacked by the National Advisory Council? He should well know that if such a provision had existed, it would have been immediately followed by others defining the behaviours of this organ. For instance, what should the National Advisory do once the Party is seized? Should they confiscate it for ever, act only in the interim and organise some NEC elections in a given time or what? If such provisions cannot be found in our Constitution, that means, NEC, whatever the case, is irreplaceable!
In compensation, it provides that the two-thirds of NEC members with voting powers or the two-thirds of the Provincial Executive Committees can request the convening of the Convention. They didn’t request, and they could not have done so because all of them were aware and in full agreement with the consensus which was reached in NEC to postpone the elective Convention for more urgent and vital reasons for the Party’s future.
Barrister Ben Muna, being a lawyer, should be more conversant. He says “all decisions taken by NEC members whose mandate has expired are null and void. We may agree with him. But Cameroonians must know that Ben Muna, who had resigned since 1996, has been accepted back into the SDF only through the Reconciliation Forum NEC organized in 2004. If the NEC mandate has expired in April 2003 on the one hand, and if all decisions taken by NEC since are null and void in the other hand, then Muna’s readmission back into the SDF is therefore null and void. Not being a SDF militant, in what capacity does he speak in the name of or act on behalf of a SDF whose militant he has ceased to be? In questioning the legality of NEC since 2003, he automatically questions his SDF membership! Here is what his certificate of participation at the Reconciliation Forum [of 2004] says: “We have recommended that you be accepted henceforth as a member of the Party. Accordingly, you will enjoy all the rights and privileges of membership as provided for under the Constitution as from time to time amended and those contained in the regulatory provisions. At the same time, you should realise that you will be subjected to the discipline of the Party.” As you can notice, if Ben Muna hurriedly used and abused his rights and privileges provided for by his readmission, he did not at all find it necessary to feel “subjected to the discipline of the Party.” Ecce homo!
He also pretends that it is the National Advisory Council whose President is Prof. Ngwasiri that runs the SDF now. Let’s open Ngwasiri’s page! For having betrayed the Party by signing the so-called “Peace Agreement” with the CPDM and the then Governor of the North-West Province in the name of the SDF without any mandate after the 2002 twin elections, Ngwasiri was tried by NEC, and found guilty. As sanction, he had to pay a million francs fine and resign from the post of President of the National Advisory Council he occupied at that time. On May 12, 2003, he sent his letter of resignation to the Chairman, Ni John Fru Ndi. This is what he wrote:
“ The National Chairman, SDF, Bamenda.
Your Excellency,
Resignation
Following the call on me by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of our Party ( at its meeting of April 5,2003, and brought to my attention at the NEC meeting of May 10,2003), to resign of the post of President of The National Advisory Council (NAC), which I currently occupy, I hereby tender my resignation with effect from the date of this letter. I attach herewith, draft of letters convening the next meeting of Council on May 31, 2003, for your signature, since only you can convene such a meeting in the circumstance.”
This letter was copied to all permanent Members of the NAC, the Secretary General of the SDF and the SDF Administrative Secretary. So Pr Ngwasiri resigned from his post of President of the National Advisory Council with effect from the 12th of May 2003! Not only he did resign, but he also named and handed over power to the only official of the Party who, constitutionally, could replace him: the National Party Chairman! If there had been any quarrel about a NEC mandate, he would not have let himself be tried and sentenced by an illegal NEC; he would not have handed over his post to the Chairman of a NEC whose mandate had expired a month before. But he could not have done otherwise. He knew very well that he had been part of the NEC that debated and decided consensually to postpone the elective Convention. That’s why he kept attending NEC meetings until for reasons unknown to us, they decided to question and to overthrow the legal and legitimate leadership.
Pr Ngwasiri never appealed and all NEC members know he had resigned. His situation was all the more unforgivable that he even refused to pay the one million francs fine inflicted on him. Why can he to-day pretend to act as President of the NAC he has since ceased to be or in the name of an organ where he is put in minority? He and his followers behave as if referring to NAC meant referring to him alone!
In fact, on March 12, 2006, a NAC meeting, duly convened, gathering nine members out of 13 met at the Party Secretariat in Bamenda and resolved that “Ngwasiri has continued since 13 February 2006 to act for and on their behalf and they therefore consider all that has been carried out by him in their name as null and void”. The nine (09) NAC members reiterated “that Prof. Ngwasiri resigned as President of NAC on the 12th May 2003” and also “took note of the resolution of the extraordinary NEC meeting held on the 25th February 2006 in Douala confirming the auto-exclusion of Prof. Ngwasiri by his Bamenda Electoral District and the Executive Committee of his Province of origin and lent to it their total support”. With the arrival of Mr. Adama Pawa who did not attend that NAC meeting, 10 NAC members out of 13 actively attended the 26-28 Bamenda Convention. What is left to Ngwasiri to talk or act on behalf or in the name of the National Advisory Council?
All in all, here is the Ngwasiri who pretends to be now running the SDF: a man who had been forced to resign from his post of President of NAC for high treason and who did so by naming and handing over to his constitutional successor; a man who has been expelled from the SDF for anti-party activities; a Parliamentarian who has been excluded from the SDF Parliamentary Group and for whom a seat has been given in a small dark isolated corner of the hemicycle, far from all other Parliamentary groups; a man pushed forward to dissidence by a lawyer who questions the legality of that same NEC which readmitted him back into the Party! Now that you’ve known them very well, and that they sound so empty which is the Party they pretend to run? Not the SDF, any way!
In conclusion, the authentic, legal and legitimate SDF is that for which Mrs Anembom Monju and I have been speaking every week for years in CRTV; the SDF which seats in Councils; the SDF which has a Parliamentary Group in the National Assembly and whose group leader is Hon. Joseph Mbah Ndam; the SDF which has just held its 7th Ordinary Convention on May 26, 2006, in Bamenda and whose re-elected National Chairman is Ni John Fru Ndi! The SDF that was launched on a 26th of May in Ntarikon Bamenda under the circumstances you all know. The only SDF that can answer when a political party with that name is called! There is no other SDF anywhere.
It is only very regrettable that a citizen who has defied the authority of the State, usurping the name of a political Party, braving the order of the administrative authorities to organise an illegal gathering that has caused dead and wounded can still be free, proudly going to and fro, giving interviews in the state media, like a star. We know the law N° 90/055 of December 19th, 1990 is there to regulate the holding of public meetings and manifestations and to stop those who organise or attend forbidden or non-authorised meetings. Are Ben Muna and his followers above the law? Let’s only hope that justice will do its job very soon, that the truth shall prevail and that this bad example will not inspire other Cameroonians!
By Prof. Jean Takoungang
Yaounde, May 31, 2006
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