On 12th June 2023, John Fru Ndi, Paul Biya’s historic opponent in Cameroon, sadly passed away. The “president”, as he was known, died at the age of 81 after a long illness. He founded the Social Democratic Front (SDF) party in 1990 and came close to winning the 1992 presidential elections. The day after his death, he received many tributes in his country.
National deputy Joshua Osih, first vice-president of the SDF, reacted to the death of the founding father of his party by saying that “He was a jovial person, someone who was open, who loved contact, who was a great patriot who sincerely loved Cameroon. He demonstrated this on two occasions. The first was when, after the 1992 elections, he could have gone to civil war. Everyone was pushing him towards it, including the leaders of the SDF. Governments like Sani Abacha’s in Nigeria were seeking to tip Cameroon toward civil war. And he said he would not govern Cameroon on the blood of Cameroonians. the second time, when armed secession started, they sought to make the SDF the political arm of this secession, which he firmly refused. And that earned us all the attacks on him”.
Lawyer Akere Muna had known the chairman of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) for some sixty years. In 1990, with his brother Bernard Muna, Akere Muna took part in the drafting of the SDF statutes in Bamenda. Fru Ndi stresses that we should note in today’s context when people talk to us about Anglophones and Francophones, that he got more than 30% of the vote in the 1992 presidential elections for a country with 20% Anglophones.
Akere Muna continued: “He was someone with extraordinary charisma. A simple man, a man of the people, he could understand where the roads are, the bad roads, where people live”.
Grégoire Owona, Minister of Labour and Social Security and Deputy Secretary General of the Central Committee of the CPDM, President Paul Biya’s ruling party, also paid tribute to the memory of the deceased, saying that “Beyond political opposition, he was a great patriot and a very peaceful man who contributed, in his way, to the construction of our young democracy”.