“I have played my part; it is time for me to rest.” These were the last words of Ni John Fru Ndi to his family, party members, and close collaborators before his demise that night.
Ni John Fru Cameroon’s opposition leader and chairman of the Social Democratic Front (SDF), died after a protracted illness, sources in his party told MMI.
Ni John who died aged 81, returned to Cameroon three days ago, from Switzerland, where he was receiving treatment.
Paddy Asanga, who has been a member of the party for decades, was in tears when he explained to MMI how Ni John had fought a good fight.
“This is difficult for me! I cannot say much for now. There is no other like Ni John Fru Ndi,” Asanga said.
Ni John was a man of action and believed that the way to meaningful change could only come through that. He made this point in his speech marking the SDF’s 30th anniversary.
“Our experience has taught us to always take a seat on the table and make our voices heard. It is not in boycott and abstention that we register the dissenting voice, but in full participation and consistently telling the alternative story and explaining how things can be and should be different, without blinking,” Ni John Fru Ndi said.
Life
Fru Ndi was born in Baba II, near Bamenda in Cameroon’s then-North West Province. When he was born, he was given the title of Ni (a symbol of respect). In 1957, he went to Nigeria to study (at Lagos City College) and work after attending school in Cameroon at the Baforchu Basel Mission and the Santa Native Authority.
In 1990, Fru Ndi founded the SDF, an opposition party. He was elected National Chairman of the SDF in its First Ordinary National Convention in Bamenda in May 1992.
In the October 1992 presidential election, he ran a successful campaign against President Paul Biya, receiving 36% of the vote to Biya’s 40% (in Fru Ndi’s stronghold, Northwest Province, he received 86.3%). The opposition decried the election as fraudulent, and Fru Ndi and third-place opposition candidate Maigari Bello Bouba unsuccessfully tried to have the election overturned by the Supreme Court.
In late October 1992, during the eruption of violence in the North-West Province following the election, Fru Ndi was placed under house arrest. He was released roughly a month later. Fru Ndi and his wife Rose attended United States President Bill Clinton’s inauguration on January 20, 1993. He and Rose were photographed with Clinton and Hillary Clinton, and Fru Ndi’s participation at the event had a symbolic impact in Cameroon, providing a sense of acknowledgment and legitimacy in light of Fru Ndi’s claim to have won the 1992 election.
The SDF, along with other opposition parties, chose to boycott the presidential election in October 1997.
In the October 2004 presidential election, Fru Ndi was the SDF candidate; according to official data, he finished second with 17.40% of the vote, compared to 70.92% for Biya.
Fru Ndi accused the July 2007 parliamentary election of fraud and demanded that it be overturned; in the election, the SDF gained the second most seats but trailed the ruling CPDM, which won an overwhelming majority of seats. Following the election, Fru Ndi stated that Biya should recognise him as the official opposition leader.
On November 14, 2007, Fru Ndi stated that he would be willing to meet with Biya. He claimed that Biya had not invited him to meet with him and that he had attempted to meet with him multiple times, contradicting Biya’s claim on French television that Fru Ndi had not responded to his request.
Fru Ndi called for a national day of mourning on April 21, 2008, to remember those who died during the 2008 anti-government protests and the “death of democracy” in Cameroon. Fru Ndi stated that he believed the 2008 Constitutional Amendments were intended to allow President Biya to be Cameroon’s lifelong dictator, and that the reforms would institutionalise corruption, immunity, and inertia.
Fru Ndi ran unsuccessfully in the October 2011 presidential election, finishing a distant second to Biya.
Anglophone Crisis
John Fru Ndi has criticised the Cameroonian government’s handling of the Anglophone Crisis, a war that has directly harmed him. Ambazonian separatists burned down his residence in Bamenda in October 2018.
His brother was kidnapped by gunmen who sought a ransom on April 19, 2019. Eight days later, he was kidnapped while visiting Kumbo in the Northwest Region to attend the funeral of Joseph Banadzem, the SDF’s Parliamentary group leader. He was promptly released, with the SDF describing the entire incident as a “misunderstanding” that was quickly resolved.
The next day, it was discovered that the separatist had kidnapped Fru Ndi in order to speak with him. In a video that went viral, gunmen demanded that the SDF leader remove all SDF legislators from the National Assembly and Senate. Fru Ndi said that he would not because it would be counterproductive.
Fru Ndi remarked in June 2019 that while he was not a separatist, the government “was pushing him” in that manner.[23] Fru Ndi has made a point of visiting the Anglophone regions without a security escort, claiming that he is not scared of his own people, especially separatists.
