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John Fru Ndi, Chairman of the opposition SDF party, is at war with El-Hadj Lawan Bako, Chairman of the Bamenda based United Democratic Party, UDP, following claims by the latter that President Biya has been financing the SDF.
Bako who also doubles as spokesman for the presidential majority, a coalition of political parties that ally with Biya’s CPDM party, is a well-known negotiator and mediator between the Biya regime and other interest groups in Cameroon.
Sources told The Cameroon Journal that Bako was first used by the Biya regime in 1997 to initiate talks of a unity gov’t between the SDF and the CPDM.
When Bako approached Fru Ndi for the deal, we gathered, the SDF National Chairman assigned late Justice Nyo’ Wakai and the then SDF Secretary General, Tazoacha Asonganyi, to represent the SDF at the talks. Peter Mafany Musonge and Joseph Charles Doumba, then Prime Minister and CPDM Secretary General, respectively, led the CPDM side of the delegation. The talks collapsed in 1999.
We also gathered that it was yet Lawan Bako who spearheaded negotiations for President Biya to receive Fru Ndi in Bamenda for the first time, during festivities marking the 50th anniversary of Cameroon’s armed forces in 2010.
When pressured to divulge how President Biya has been financing the SDF directly and indirectly, Bako chose to go hypothetical.
When pressured to divulge how President Biya has been financing the SDF directly and indirectly, Bako chose to go hypothetical.
Hear him: “Take note that it was President Biya who instructed the CPDM to campaign for the SDF senatorial lists in the Adamawa and West regions in 2013. The CPDM communication secretary, Prof. Jacques Fame Ndongo, was seen on CRTV television with an SDF senatorial campaign ballot paper telling CPDM councilors in Adamawa and the West regions: “…Votez SDF. At the end of the election, the SDF won 14 senatorial seats; thanks to President Paul Biya who is also the CPDM national chairman…”
He added that “the 14 senators which the CPDM gave the SDF have added much to the party’s pay package because they are financing the party. If somebody gives a job to your son and your son uses the finances he gets from that job to help you, you have to thank the person who gave him the job. In this case, the SDF has to thank President Paul Biya ceaselessly. He deserves to have cold water from the SDF and not blistering hot wate.” Bako said.
Fru Ndi response to Bako’s claims
Contacted for his reaction to Bako’s claims, John Fru Ndi, first got upset that his quiet moment was being interrupted just so he could respond to the pontifications of somebody he described as “a nobody, an opportunist, regime’s bootlicker and mail runner.”
Contacted for his reaction to Bako’s claims, John Fru Ndi, first got upset that his quiet moment was being interrupted just so he could respond to the pontifications of somebody he described as “a nobody, an opportunist, regime’s bootlicker and mail runner.”
When we reminded him that Bako does not merit to be addressed in such terms because he is the national chairman of a political party like him and the spokesman of the presidential majority, Fru Ndi thundered: “Is being the spokesman of presidential majority a profession? If he is the national chairman of a political party, let him tell me just how many councilors his party has ever had.”
Ndi continued; “The likes of Lawan Bako are spoilers who take advantage of the efforts the SDF put in, to force democracy down the throats of the Biya regime to look for food. They move around with business cards and the beggar’s bowl in the name of being members of the presidential majority…” Fru Ndi said.
While vehemently refuting the allegations that Biya has been financing his party, Fru Ndi, who acknowledged that the UDP Chairman is a regime insider, challenged him to produce evidence to back his claim.
El-Hadj Lawan Bako, Chairman of the Bamenda based United Democratic Party, UDP
When reminded that Bako said President Biya is financing the SDF indirectly because he instructed CPDM councilors in the Adamawa and West regions to vote for the SDF senatorial lists in 2013, the SDF national chairman fired back saying: “Lawan Bako is a very stupid politician! Does he not know that Mr. Biya and the CPDM have been rigging elections in this country? I know Mr. Biya has compensated him with the post of SNH board member because of the dirty jobs he has been doing in this country, but let him not provoke Cameroonians.”
Fru Ndi explained that the CPDM instructed its councilors in the Adamawa and West regions to vote for the SDF list not because they wanted it. “The CPDM took that decision after they realized that they were caught in their own trap. Mr. Biya knew that there could be no senate short of 14 senators, so he decided that in the absence of what he wanted, he should just do with the devil which was the SDF.”
Asked if he remembers that as a regime negotiator, it was Bako who negotiated the meeting between him and Biya in Bamenda in 2010, Fru Ndi wouldn’t say yes or no, but retorted: “If Lawan Bako says he was the one who negotiated for Mr. Biya to receive me in Bamenda, let him tell Cameroonians if during that visit, he too was received by Biya.”
Bako Strikes Back
Following the publication of Fru Ndi’s reactions to his allegations in a local daily, Bako issued a press statement dated March 17, choosing rather to go personal on Fru Ndi.
Following the publication of Fru Ndi’s reactions to his allegations in a local daily, Bako issued a press statement dated March 17, choosing rather to go personal on Fru Ndi.
In the statement, he said; “Mr. Fru Ndi said I am stupid and a nobody. Let Mr. Fru Ndi be told that before the SDF was created, he was using a 505 Peugeot car while I was using a Mercedes car along with 505 SR automatic. If they take away the SDF chairmanship from his tittle, he will see his level.” Bako said.
Rather than provide evidence Fru Ndi requested, Bako rather struggled to proof he is a better family and business man than the SDF chieftain.
“I have nine children of which two are PhD holders, including a medical doctor and two engineers. How many does he have? I am not a failure in life but a progressive gentleman from birth”, he wrote, questioning “Did he (President Biya) rig the senatorial elections which he (Fru Ndi) contested in the North West region and was beaten?”
He reiterated that President Biya’s CPDM campaigned for SDF to win 14 senatorial seats in 2013. “Fru Ndi should ask himself why President Paul Biya did not ask CPDM to vote for Bello Bouba’s UNDP which has an alliance with the CPDM.”
Lawan Bako also asked rhetorically whether Fru Ndi can deny the fact that like other parties represented in the National Assembly, the SDF receives money from the state. He also asked whether Fru Ndi could tell Cameroonians his relationship with El Hadj Baba Dan Pullo of the CPDM Central Committee and whether he has ever given him financial support and for what purpose.
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