Jean Tsomelou: SDF gets first ever Francophone SG

By a correspondent in Bamenda

Senator Jean Tsomelou: new SDF Secretary General

Social Democratic Front, SDF National Chairman, Ni John Fru Ndi has appointed Senator Jean Tsomelou from the West region as the party’s new Secretary General.

                 Jean Tsomelou who is also group leader of the SDF at the Senate was appointed to the high office Wednesday alongside his 1st deputy Secretary General.

                Senator Tsomelou replaces Elizabeth Tamajong who resigned her position in February 2015. The honorable senator thus becomes the first ever Francophone to occupy the post of Secretary General of the SDF.

Tsomelou’s appointment comes barely months after he successfully organized elections in the crises-prone Littoral branch of the SDF.

                Born on 20 December 1968, Senator Jean Tsomelou who became Cameroon’s youngest Member of Parliament in 1997 also serves as the West Regional Chairman of the SDF.

                Before his appointment Wednesday, the Post of SDF SG had been vacant for over two years following the resignation of Elizabeth Tamajong in February 2015.

                Tamajong had amongst other things called for the position of Secretary General to be elective as well as for a separation of powers within the party. In her resignation letter addressed to Chairman John Fru Ndi, Tamajong lamented the shabby treatments visited on her person by the all-powerful SDF Chairman.

                “The SDF is a party that has always been very dear to me, reason why I have relentlessly and diligently served in all the positions that I have held…But since becoming SG in 2006, I have been subject to repeated disrespect and humiliation, publicly and privately, from across the board of the party hierarchy….. The dates of NEC meetings, as well as the meeting agenda, are normally fixed by the SG in consultation with the National Chairman, but recently, such meetings have been summoned with complete disregard of the SG…… I have been replaced as a statutory signatory to the party’s bank account, without even being informed, in violation of section 13.5(d) of the party constitution,” wrote Tamajong in her strongly-worded resignation letter.

                Tamajong’s resignation as SDF scribe was the third in a row, after those of the late Profs Siga Asanga and Tazoacha Asonganyi. Like her predecessors, Tamajong was confirmed by Chairman Fru Ndi as the party’s scribe on July 17, 2006, after acting in that position for six months upon the withdrawal of Michael Ndobegang, who was appointed following the resignation of Prof. Asonganyi.