Fru Ndi’s Leadership Reshuffle: Prof .Kale Regrets Architects of SDF’s Electoral Defeats Still in Command.

 *Recommends Leadership by Example 

By Christopher Ambe 

University Distinguished Professor Emeritus Ndiva Kofele Kale

Buea- Ndiva Kofele Kale Esq., University Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and a pillar of the Social Democratic Front (SDF), has reacted to his sacking as a member of the Shadow Cabinet of the leading opposition party in Cameroon.

Prof.Kale is one of senior officials recently replaced as shadow cabinet ministers by Ni John Fru Ndi, aged about 81, who has been the National Chairman of  SDF for 32 years (since  launch of the party in May 1990).

“Transfusion of fresh blood into a political organization, especially one as sclerotic as the SDF’s National Executive Committee (NEC), is salutary,” said Kale in a June 17, 2022 statement, titled “Reacting To My ‘Sacking’ From The SDF Shadow Cabinet.”

But the legal luminary quipped,“ If, and this is a big  if, the recent cooptation and appointments to NEC are an indication of a desire to rejuvenate the party leadership and not simply an excuse to purge the ranks of ‘ideological undesirables’ then it’s all good.

Prof. Kale, who in 2012 had reportedly tendered his resignation from the party's shadow cabinet  to the National Chairman but the latter refused to let him go, said in his June 17,2022 statement that, the leadership changes just made were long overdue.

He revealed: “Resignations were expected in 2018 when the party’s standard bearer at the presidential election could barely lay claim to 4% of the votes cast. It is here that cleansing at the helm of the party should have commenced. That would have been in keeping with our fundamental principles and values and in conformity with our social Democratic tradition and practice. . Examples of this practice in our sister social democratic parties around the world abound.

 “The conduct of leaders of the French PS, our sister party in the Socialist International, is exemplary and worthy of emulation. Lionel Jospin tendered his resignation as Socialist Party boss after two failed attempts at the French presidency. A few years later President Francois Hollande who succeeded Jospin as First Secretary of the PS and it’s standard bearer for the 2012 French presidential elections would gladly borrow a page from his predecessor’s play book and retire quietly from politics when his chances for a second presidential mandate took a nose dive at the end of his first term in 2017. 

 “We can also take the case of the British Labour Party another sister party in the Socialist International whose Westminster Foundation has funded many of our capacity-building workshops and seminars over the last three decades. In the May 6, 2010 British general election, Labour lost its majority in the House of Commons, finishing second to the Conservatives, although neither party achieved a majority. Shortly thereafter Gordon Brown announced that he was stepping down as Labour leader. On May 11, after negotiations to form a coalition government with the third-place-finishing Liberal Democrats failed, Brown tendered his resignation as Prime Minister. Germany where social democracy had its early beginnings and whose  Social Democratic Party (SPD) through its Friedrich Ebert Stiftung has accompanied the SDF since the 1990’s in its march toward a democratic future also has a lot to teach us about leadership in general and leadership accountability in particular, especially in response to grassroots complaints. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was forced to resign as SPD leader in the face of furious internal criticism of his government’s reforms”

The emeritus professor, well-known for his outspokenness, doubted if the SDF has actually learnt from international conferences of social democrats.

“For a little over two decades SDF leaders have rubbed shoulders with those of the PS, SPD, Labour and many many others in annual Socialist International summits around the globe. And this begs the question: which aspects of social democracy, which of its fundamental values and principles did our own leaders bring back to Cameroon to share with party comrades?”

According to Prof Kale, “A similar change of guard was again expected in February 2019 when the party decided to field candidates for municipal and legislative elections in clear violation of a NEC resolution to not participate in these elections until the insurgency in the Anglophone regions was brought under some sort of discipline.  They went ahead unperturbed by the fact that the SDF’s fief in the NW and SW regions was at war making it impossible to hold credible elections there.

 “Not surprisingly the party came out battered and bloodied with a miserly five (5) National Assembly seats, down from the sixteen (16) in the previous Assembly

Prof Kale, who served as SDF Shadow Cabinet Minister of Justice for sixteen (16) years (since 2006) and as  a member of the party's National Executive Committee(NEC) for twenty-six (26) years, pointed out:

 “The irony is that the architects of two of the SDF’s most humiliating electoral defeats in its 32 years of existence are still in command! I think they should be leading by example, inspired by their PS, SPD and Labour colleagues, and should have been the first to seize this opportunity to pass the leadership baton to a new crop of leaders. It’s only through such wholesale, not partial and selective; cleansing that one can give true meaning to the National Chairman’s claim that the personnel changes he just orchestrated will “achieve better organizational efficiency.”

Kale Doesn’t Regret His Sacking

Prof. Kale admitted that the party’s constitution vests in the National Chairman the power to appoint and dismiss its shadow cabinet.

 “It follows therefore that all shadow cabinet members serve at the chairman’s pleasure, “he said, adding he served as Head of Legal and Judicial Affairs [for the SDF] since 2006.

 “I have no quarrel with [Ni John Fru’s] decision to relieve me of this responsibility. Sixteen years is a long time to be hugging the same post.  If I had any sense I would have tended my resignation a long while back to make room for new blood! Be that as it may, the National Chairman has helped me to make that decision and I thank him immensely.”