Pr. Asonganyi’s Satanic Verses

By Solomon ENDALI, SDF Centre Region
Since the creation of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) in 1990, there have been four Secretaries-General who have served the Party. One of them is Professor Tazoacha Asonganyi whom this write up is about. This article is a reaction to his recent publication under the title Cameroon: Difficult Choices in a Failed Demcracy, Memoir. He openly admitted on resigning from his post and from excluding himself from the Party that he was a failure. This was a sign of honesty and maturity because he actually failed. This said, the ugly side of the Professor began to surface when he started to expose his ignorance about the Party he had served as Secretary-General. The title of Professor Asonganyi’s book  does not reflect its content. This is because the title gives the impression that he is writing about failed democracy in Cameroon, but, from the contents, it is clear that he has  limited himself to the SDF. If the title of the book were SDF: An Example of failed Democracy in Cameroon, its contents would have been justified. Can one, therefore, say that Professor Asonganyi played a fast one on his readers? The answer is every one’s guess.
    Mr. Asonganyi knows very well how democratic the Social Democratic Front is, and could, therefore, not afford to make a mistake. It may be that he wanted to say that some choices of persons in the Party are wrongly done. If that is the case, then, he might be right because his choice as Secretary-General was a clear example of such wrong choices. A good Secretary-General should not seek to bring down the structure he claims he labouriously worked to build. The Professor should know that the people of Lebialem from where he hails demonstrated their anger over his choice as Secretay-General by  vomitting him.
    Mr. Asonganyi, rather than being a blessing to the Party has been a disappointment because it was under his tenure as Secretary-General that SDF lost Lebialem, one of its very strongholds to the opposite camp, the CPDM. He can, therefore, be described as a politician without a political base. The people of Lebialem wanted to see social democratic values in him, but he failed them. Some of my good friends from Lebialem have testified to the fact that he is too full of himself, he is elitist in style and hardly shows up in any Lebialem forum either here in Yaounde where he resides or at home, especially when he was the Secretary-General of the SDF. This is a pity for a man of his standing. A good politician is one who identifies himself with the people; this is more so when one is a social democrat.

    People become members of the Social Democratic Front as individuals and if one of such fails in fulfilling his/her political ambitions in the Party, he/she should attribute this failure to himself/herself and not to the Party or its National Chairman. So, Professor Asonganyi as an individual has failed and not the SDF as a Party. The funny thing about all of Mr. Asonganyi’s criticisms is that they are directed at the National Chairman of the Party, H.E. Ni John Fru Ndi.
    The learned Professor should be reminded that where he failed is where Ni John Fru Ndi is succeeding. In the SDF we say “Power to the people and equal opportunities to all”. Who are the people referred to in this saying? A majority of them are market women, taxi drivers,commercial bike riders, truck pushers, hawkers, hair dressers, barbers, mechanic technicians, rural women, among many that have been abandoned to their fate by the governing class. These are categories of people that make up the majority of the population. These are people that Ni John Fru Ndi finds pleasure to fellowship with.             Mr. Asongany should be told that this is where Mr. Fru Ndi draws his power. He should again be informed that politics is about people and anyone who fails to identify with the people is doomed to fail politically. I would have loved to see Mr. Asonganyi take the lead during 20th May march pass celebrations as Mr. Gregoire Owona does for the CPDM, though a minister. Mr. Asonganyi has failed alone and should, therefore lick his political wounds quietly. He should let the SDF be.
    If it is not frustration, what is it that has pushed Mr. Asonganyi  to start seeking a ministerial post from Mr. Biya’s government which he had bitterly opposed? It is now clear that he was among those who had been pushing the SDF to sell the cause by joining government so that they too could eat. As Secretary-General, he was sure that if the SDF joined government he would be appointed a minister, the first from Lebialem. Why does he waste his time writing satanic verses against the SDF, rather than writing motions of support to President Biya? Does he think the former will gain his favour from Mr. Biya than the latter? Let’s wait and see. This is a bit trickish for him because he should be reminded that there are other Professors from Lebialem in the CPDM that master the art of writing motions of support more than he does.
    It is important to say once more that rather than being a blessing, Mr. Asonganyi has been a curse to the SDF. He very well knows that at creation the SDF stood for  genuine change in Cameroon; which is not a change of persons but a deep change in the system of governance in the country. Though we have not yet achieved this goal, nobody of good faith can deny the fact that SDF has done quite much in this direction in pushing the regime to tolerate heated discussions on issues that foster this goal in the Cameroonian political space.
     Among this much by the SDF, whether Mr. Asonganyi and his kind like it or not, political Parties and their leaders now see things and isssues from a more open perspective. This was not the case in the maiden years of multiparty politics in Cameroon in the early 90s. There is some degree of tolerance in the way politics is done now than it was before. The patient and peacefull approach of the SDF is, at least, paying off in a way. With Professor Asonganyi or without him, what is certain is that the SDF will lead Cameroon to true democracy sooner or later. The Social Democratic Front will not abandon the struggle. Mr. Asonganyi should know that his drummers are playing the wrong music and his dancing steps are wrong. In fact, he is missing his steps in all his dancing, the latest of which is his book which I term Satanic Verses against the SDF.