Hon.Dr.Joseph Banadzem
In the wake of the swearing in ceremony of the president elect, Paul Biya and the November budgetary session at the parliament, Le Droit newspaper sought to obtain clarification on the position of the Social Democratic Front, SDF party, unarguably the opposition power house in Cameroon, which maintains its stands of not accepting the victory of Paul Biya, all these with the SDF parliamentary group leader, Hon.Dr.Joseph Banadzem.Read the interview that follows.
Can you comment on the 9th October 2011 presidential election organized by ELECAM, in which your party took part?
I think the ELECAM asked us to give them a chance to prove their worth, we knew that they would not do it. But after fighting for 2 years to make sure that we should not only rely on somebody’s good will but on laws that governs the society and an organization. We went to the polls at the tail end. There were areas of origins, with piles of voters cards obtain because ELECAM is totally in charge of production of the cards. Why did we have multiple registration, dead people and so on, when we programmed earlier with the complicity and work of ELECAM to have the mess we had ELECAM officials should resign.
The SDF has taken cognizance of the proclamation of the results in favor of the incumbent. Does this mean the SDF has accepted the verdict of the constitutional council?
No we have not said that we have accepted the verdict of the constitutional council. We have noted what they have address in the Supreme Court. It is available; I can give you a copy of the chairman’s message if you want to get the stand of the SDF.We can not accept the results the way it is. In a state of law when something is wrong, it must be rectified. It was indicated, from all indication that in some areas more people voted than were registered. In some areas people were killed because of elections. In certain areas, so many wrong things that a normal society of law can not endorse. So the SDF can not be part and will not be part of disobeying the laws we have agreed on, as collectivity.
10.7 percent, this may not certainly have been what the SDF campaigned for. What went wrong?
Everybody except you wants me to tell you. Everybody knows what went wrong. I earlier started indicating what went wrong. Let me give you an example for there are some small small details people might not know. In some polling stations like in Ngilla in Ngoro, in the Mbam et Kim Division of the Centre Region, in one of the polling station for instance after they voted, 40 people voted for president Biya Paul, 30 people voted for Ni John Fru Ndi and 10 others for another candidate and then the officials proclaimed that everybody had voted for Biya Paul. The 2 SDF people around called me told me that this is what was happening. In Ngoro, this is just a small example of what was happening in every place. You will take note. Let me give another strong example; the ID card which was suppose to be one of the prerequisites for registration and subsequent voting, for 2 years government struggle, people spent millions to establish ID cards and at the tail end, they reduced it to half for people to have Id cards and 3 months or so before elections, it was made free. So all those people sponsored by government, who needed ID cards, why would the Director General of election come out and say people should vote without ID cards. He is disapproving the head of state, telling him that all that your identification has no meaning. These are the people now, who in the day of election went voting randoningly, this with the complicity of ELECAM for multiple voting without ID cards and so on, fake cards that were established. So we have all these results we have, and in areas where the SDF voted, they were not permitted to vote. So the 10.7 percent is not the worth of the SDF.The worth of the SDF, we have challenged and still challenging the authorities concern to put in an independent body to get the worth of the SDF in the polls.
How would you compensate for the up coming municipal parliamentary in 2012?
You see the SDF will continue to fight for the right thing to be done in this country. At various level, where we are going to put people in charge, responsible as individual, where you know that you are going in as a councilor, you are going in as a future mayor, you are going in as a parliamentarian, or as an alternate member of parliament. Your future and the future of the people you want to defend depends on the out come and out put of what you will do on the field and if it meant that the crisis will start at the local levels with individuals of that nature, because we have to fight it out and either now or in future it will break down. So we will put up candidates who are ready to fight. Let me tell you that the other day, the chairman could not get to his house through another way, why did he not take their own way? When we are determined to do something we can do it but we think that it will be wrong to use force to by-pass the law to do it. But if we are forced, Cameroonians are ready to go along with us to do the right thing.
May we understand the return of the Chairman to Bamenda.What really happened? Can you throw some light on this issue?
What happened is that you have a regime which is afraid of its shadow. There is no reason for the regime to determine how someone will get to his house. The chairman, except we are not economist and normal people. If the chairman decides to use a road for whatever reason he needs to get to his house, why would someone force him to take another road. The simple fact is that he was blocked from passing through the shortest possible road to his house, to use a by-road which is going to go round the town before getting to his house. Since the vehicle could not pass, the chairman decided to walk for 3 to 4km to his house. Is an insult to humanity, an insult even to the people who decided to let a personality of that nature, walk to his house because he can not drive his car to his house. So the chairman said ok if you do not want me drive to my house, at least I will walk to my house. And on walking the population decided to accompany him to his house. It was a simple matter, the chairman did not programme, a rally or a match to his house. The government organized a match for him to his house.
Hon. what lessons have you drawn or learnt from this election?
The lessons are many. The first lesson is what we predicted, ridiculing our society. The CPDM regime has again, organized to ridicule the Cameroon society because i do not think with the organization of this election, Cameroon can stand tall among the democratic countries of the world. We will have to battle to redress that and the SDF will not be tired to go on with that battle.Then secondly at our own level, the SDf is drawing so many lessons from it. We demonstrated in this election, that you don’t only need money and falsehood to achieve something. The SDF went for this election without a single franc in their coffer. on the other side, you had the regim CPDM e which for 3 years kept on running round the whole world, squandering state money, sending delegations round to get things done. They realized more than 3 billion from economic operators, who were forced to contribute all this money. Used state money and resources and yet had to cheat in an election in order to win. Whereas the SDF which had no franc campaigned nationwide like no party .this was the demonstration of a party that has the will to do something.
Thirdly we went out and we re-dynamized our party because the enthusiasm people showed for the SDF, indicating truth and morality is an asset which would be necessary for this country. So the SDF has demonstrated so many elements which would be very useful. and of course we did go for the elections, all the various mishalves and lapses which we have gone and demonstrated what Elecam is and nobody has faith in Elecam. we think is a structure to scrap and start anew. Because from when they said we should we should, we announced so nobody can give faith to it. i do not know what will happen to it but it has been demonstrated that that body cannot organize free elections in this country.
You are granting this interview at a time when parliament is meeting for the third time and last session for the year. A session devoted for the budget what are your expectations?
I can not have expectations. Our expectations are that we should have a good election and a good social and economic life of the country. We would continue to denounce the various mal-practices which we have observed so far. I am coming from up country, where to get to Kumbo now, takes me 6 hours. So of the places I had to walk and this has been going on for the past years. And coming from Kumbo where you do not have electricity or you have it once every 5 days or 2 days. Right here in Yaounde people are laying in the Central hospital dying of cholera and so on. These are issues which are ought to be addressed by various budgets, which we have established over the years. If you take the reactions of the SDF here in the various budget and see what we have proposed. We will continue to pounce on that, to make sure that the Cameroonian people who have bear with us that our society should be a normal. we will look at the proposals of what the government is going to bring and after elections, their priority would not be Cameroonians but how to hang on to power. This budget which is coming is going to be another budge to, permit on this government which is not of the people, to hang on to power.
How do you envisage the country in the eyes of the SDF in 2012?
The SDF will continue the fight. The life of a nation calls for eternity. The lives of individuals or group of individuals have a limit, which can not be beyond human limit. The SDF will continue to preach the right thing and eternity will tell us who was right and who was wrong. They, who are using violence to stay in power, will pay for it now or later, the way they deserve. But the SDF has stood for the right thing, has stood by the law, and will continue to fight through peaceful means to get Cameroon to its rightful place.
Elangwe Esino Evaristus
