Cameroon:Litumbe Sues Buea DO for banning Press conference

*Summoned, the administrator fails to appear in Court.

*But matter heard and ruling billed for March 25

By Christopher Ambe

Mola joh Litumbe

Mola Njoh  Litumbe, 86, and Chairman of Liberal Democratic Alliance(LDA),a Buea –based  political party, who was recently  placed under “house  arrest”, after  his declared press conference was banned by the Divisional officer for Buea, Chekem  M. Abraham, has dragged the latter to the Fako High Court in Buea.

Mr.Litumbe wants the Court to determine :1) “Whether any Divisional Officer, or Divisional Officer for Buea, can lawfully place a ban on a political party or more particularly the Liberal Democratic Alliance, preventing it from holding a public press conference after the political party has filed a declaration to that effect as required by Law No. 90-55 of 19 Dec.1090

Chekem Abraham:Buea DO

II) “ Whether the Defendant (Mr. Chekem Abraham) can deny or lie that he did not unlawfully ban the announced public press conference organized  by the plaintiff Njoh Litumbe) in strict conformity with the law”

Barrister Blaise Sevidzem Berinyuy Esq, Counsel for Plaintiff Njoh Litumbe, in his application to the Court said, were the court to answer the above questions in the negative, the plaintiff would seek the following reliefs:

a)For the Court to declare null and void the ban placed by defendant on the plaintiff from holding a public press conference at their party headquarters on 23 rd February 2013

b) An order directing the defendant not to prevent the plaintiff from conducting public meetings and press conferences when re-scheduled and declared in accordance with the law

c) An order of compensation against Defendant in favour of the plaintiff

When the matter came for hearing last March 11, the DO for Buea, Chekem Abraham, who was reportedly duly served to appear in court  failed to do so, and sent no explanation for his absence.

The presiding judge Chi Valentine went ahead and heard the submissions of Barristers Blaise Sevidzem and Ajong Stanislaus, counsels for the plaintiff and the matter was adjourned to March 25 for ruling. 

It would be recalled that, armed troops( police and gendarmes )  from about 7am  to   6:PM  on Saturday February 23  placed  Mola Njoh Litumbe under what many  likened to a house  arrest .

It was the third time Mola Njoh was placed under house arrest by the local administration in Buea

Mola Njoh, also widely known as Anglophones’ rights campaigner and some relatives of his who had passed the night in his residence and were planning to attend a funeral were trapped in the residence.  The troops said they were instructed by the DO to block the entrance of the house, so that nobody could get in or out.

Mola  Njoh was prevented from coming out of his gated Bokwaongo-Buea residence ( a  section of which also serves  as his party’s headquarters) after he had  notified  the Buea Local Administration as required by law  three days earlier about his intention to hold a  press conference .

The theme of the press conference was “Electronic Voter Registration and other recent political development”

But upon receipt of the notification from Mola Njoh, the DO, Abraham Chekem, banned the press conference on grounds that Mola Njoh was not explicit on what he meant by recent political developments.

 Mola Njoh challenged the ban saying it was uncalled for -especially as he had, in his letter to the DO, requested him to send a representative to attend the press conference as required by law.

Despite the fact that Mola Njoh was placed under house arrest and journalists prevented from having access into the LDA conference hall, the press conference still held.

The journalists agreed to hold a tele-press conference, and since the telephone line of Mola Njoh was not cut off, they drove away into a business center in Molyko and using a phone put on speaker they asked questions to Mola Njoh and got responses.

Addressing journalists, Mola Njoh, regretted police men and gendarmes surrounded his compound.

He said the press conference was intended to  advise Cameroonians especially Southern Cameroonians to get enrolled in the current electronic registration, which minimizes fraud and multiple -voting .He said massive registration will provide people with various grievances to choose the right candidates who will defend their interests in council, parliament or Senate. 

First Published in The Recorder Newspaper,Cameroon ,of March 22,2013

Cameroon:University Don Dragged to Court for Writing “False Report” against Judge

By Christopher Ambe 

University of Buea don, Dr.Mbufong Paul kuban has appeared before the Buea Magistrate’s Court to answer to a three-count charge of false report in a criminal matter pitting him against the people of Cameroon. 

When the lone matter first came up on February 28, Mr. Mbufong could not plead, because he identified an ambiguity in the first charge and his counsel  kizito Dikumba,was  not available , causing the presiding Magistrate Nabangi Beatrice to adjourn the matter to March 7  for  the charge to be modified and for his counsel to be present.

Dr. Mbufong has been indicted for making a “false report” to Cameroon’s Vice-Prime Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seal against one Charles Namme Menyoli, a judge and currently President of Fako High Court,Buea

Arraigned on March 7, the accused Dr. Mbufong pleaded not guilty to all three charges.  His counsel, kizito Dikumba, raised a preliminary objection but Prosecutor Njojo John Njie countered it and the presiding magistrate overruled the preliminary objection, noting the matter was proper before the court.

But hearing could not go ahead because the first Prosecution Witness Justice Charles Namme Menyoli, was absent, as he was said to be on an official assignment. The matter was adjourned to April 18, for the First prosecution witness to be present and for hearing. 

According to count one on the charge sheet, Mbufong Paul Kuban made to a  person in authority a false report liable to lead to disciplinary measures against one Charles Namme Menyoli  by writing to the Vice-Prime Minister of Justice and keeper of the Seal and alleging there that Charles Namme Menyoli had sued him (Mr.Mbufong)with respect in  suit CFIB/03C/2010 on a matter which had been decided in Mr. Mbufong’s favor in four previous judgments and thereby committed an offence  contrary to and punishable under Section 304(1) of the Penal Code.

Count two says: “That you Mbufong Paul Kumbang made to person in authority a false liable to lead to disciplinary measures against one Charles Namme Menyoli ,that is by writing a complaint against him to the Vice-Prime Minister of Justice and keeper of the Seal and alleging there that he intends to play the role of judge and jury in matter concerning his father -in -law and thereby committed an offence contrary to and  punishable under Section 304(1) of the penal code”

Count three: “That you Mbufong Paul Kubang made to a person in authority a false report liable to lead to disciplinary measures against one Charles Namme Menyoli, that is by writing a complaint against him to the vice-Prime Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seal and alleging there that Charles Namme Menyoli has evil plans against you, a helpless and instant citizen and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 304(1) of the penal code”

According to Section 304(1) of the Penal code, “Whoever makes to any person in authority, whether public or private, a false report liable to lead to prosecution or disciplinary measures shall be punished with imprisonment for from six months to five years and with fine of from ten thousand to one million francs, unless he shows that he had good reason to believe the report to be true”

 First Published in The Recorder Newspaper, Cameroon, of March 22, 2013

Anglophone Now Heads Cameroon Athletic Federation

By Chrsitopher Ambe

Emmanuel Motomby Mbome

 Emmanuel Motomby Mbome has been elected new president of Cameroon Athletic federation, in replacement of Jacques Sebastien Mbous, for a four year mandate.

The election, described as fair and transparent, took place last week in Yaoundé

 Motomby Mbome, who is in his early 40’s, is the first ever English-speaking Cameroon (Anglophone) to occupy the presidency of the federation since its creation many years back.

Motomby Mbome beat five other contestants to emerge victorious.

The federation’s outgoing president Jacques Sebastien Mbous, could not stand for reelection because he was disqualified by the Minister of Sport and Physical Education, Adoum Garoua.

After his election, Mr. Mbome   called for greater team spirit in the management of the federation’s activities. He disclosed that, one of his immediate priorities would be to ensure that before the next Mt Cameroon race of Hope, Queen of the Mountain and athletic icon Sarah Etonge must have had a befitting house constructed by the Federation and handed to her.

 The Federation had promised to construct a modern residence for mother of seven, Sarah Etonge who distinguished herself by winning the first position in the female category of the Mount Cameroon Race three consecutive times.  The foundation of the house had since been laid but no other signs of construction work were visble, drawing sharp criticism from the public.

This year the Minister of Youth and Sport, Adoum Garoua, donated five million Francs to the Sarah Etonge house project, whose total costing is not yet public knowledge.

The newly elected president said during his tenure he would ensure that athletic officials have a uniform and that more attention will be paid to the plight of athletes. He said his executive would also ensure that athletic competitions are not only centered around Douala and Yaoundé as has been the case before but should also take place in other regions.

Mr. Motomby Mbome, hails from Buea Subdivision and is a senior controller of treasury -currently Sub treasurer for Tiko.He is a Presbyterian Christian, married and a father.

Before his election as national President of the Cameroon Athletic Federation, Mr.Motomby Mbome, was serving as Southwest Regional President of same federation since 2008.

Elsewhere, Mr.Motomby Mbome has been YCPDM president for Buea since 2002 and is currently the PTA president of Presbyterian Comprehensive Secondary School (PCSS),Buea Town.

First published in The Recorder Newspaper, Cameroon, of March 22, 2013

Novelist Chinua Achebe dies, aged 82

By Alison Flood ,The Guardian, Friday 22 March 2013 11.55 GM

 

Nigerian author recognised for key role in developing African literature has died in Boston, where he was working as a professor

Chinua Achebe: 'grandfather of African fiction'. Photograph: Craig Ruttle/AP

 Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian novelist seen by millions as the father of African literature, has died at the age of 82.

African papers were reporting his death following an illness and hospital stay in Boston this morning, and both his agent and his publisher later confirmed the news to the Guardian.
Simon Winder, publishing director at Penguin, called him an "utterly remarkable man".
"Chinua Achebe is the greatest of African writers and we are all desolate to hear of his death," he said.

In a statement, Achebe's family requested privacy, and paid tribute to "one of the great literary voices of all time. He was also a beloved husband, father, uncle and grandfather, whose wisdom and courage are an inspiration to all who knew him."
A novelist, poet and essayist, Achebe was perhaps best known for his first novel Things Fall Apart, which was published in 1958. The story of the Igbo warrior Okonkwo and the colonial era, it has sold more than 10m copies around the world and has been published in 50 languages. Achebe depicts an Igbo village as the white men arrive at the end of the 19th century, taking its title from the WB Yeats poem, which continues: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."

"The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers and our clan can no longer act like one," says Okonkwo's friend, Obierika, in the novel.
The poet Jackie Kay hailed Achebe as "the grandfather of African fiction" who "lit up a path for many others", adding that she had reread Things Fall Apart "countless times".
"It is a book that keeps changing with the times, as he did," she said.

Achebe won the Commonwealth poetry prize for his collection Christmas in Biafra, was a finalist for the 1987 Booker prize for his novel Anthills of the Savannah, and in 2007 won the Man Booker international prize. Chair of the judges on that occasion, Elaine Showalter, said he had "inaugurated the modern African novel", while her fellow judge, the South African Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, said his fiction was "an original synthesis of the psychological novel, the Joycean stream of consciousness, the postmodern breaking of sequence", and that Achebe was "a joy and an illumination to read".

Nelson Mandela, meanwhile, has said that Achebe "brought Africa to the rest of the world" and called him "the writer in whose company the prison walls came down".
The author is also known for the influential essay An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1975), a hard-hitting critique of Conrad in which he says the author turned the African continent into "a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognisable humanity, into which the wandering European enters at his peril", asking: "Can nobody see the preposterous and perverse arrogance in thus reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind?"

According to Brown University, where Achebe held the position of David and Marianna Fisher university professor and professor of Africana studies until his death, this essay "is recognised as one of the most generative interventions on Conrad; and one that opened the social study of literary texts, particularly the impact of power relations on 20th-century literary imagination".

Born in 1930 in Ogidi, in the south-east of Nigeria, the author won a scholarship to the University of Ibadan, and later worked as a scriptwriter for the Nigeria Broadcasting Service. He chose to write Things Fall Apart in English – something for which he has received criticism from authors including Ngugi wa Thiong'o – but Achebe said he felt "that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its new African surroundings".

His fourth novel, 1966's A Man of the People, anticipated a coup that took place in Nigeria just before the book was first published. "I'd ended the book with a coup," Achebe told the Guardian, "which was ridiculous because Nigeria was much too big a country to have a coup, but it was right for the novel. That night we had a coup. And any confidence we had that things could be put right were smashed. That night is something we have never really got over."

His most recent work was last year's mix of memoir and history There Was a Country, an account of the Nigerian civil war of 1967 to 1970.
Achebe was a supporter of Biafran secession, but after the end of the civil war in 1970 he took what he described as a "sojourn" in politics. There he found that "the majority of people … were there for their own personal advancement", deciding instead to devote himself to academia.

He went on to write what he called a "limited harvest" of five novels – the most recent of which was 1987's Anthills of the Savannah. "I go at the pace of inspiration and what I can physically manage," he said.

In 1990 a car accident in Nigeria left him paralysed from the waist down, and forced his move to the US. "I miss Nigeria very much. My injury means I need to know I am near a good hospital and close to my doctor. I need to know that if I went to a pharmacist, the medicine there would be the drug that the bottle says it is," he said in 2007.

Achebe has twice rejected the Nigerian government's attempt to name him a Commander of the Federal Republic – a national honour – first in 2004, and second in 2011. In 2004 he wrote that "for some time now I have watched events in Nigeria with alarm and dismay. I have watched particularly the chaos in my own state of Anambra where a small clique of renegades, openly boasting its connections in high places, seems determined to turn my homeland into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom. I am appalled by the brazenness of this clique and the silence, if not connivance, of the presidency … Nigeria's condition today under your watch is, however, too dangerous for silence. I must register my disappointment and protest by declining to accept the high honour awarded me in the 2004 honours list."

Cameroon:ELECAM and the Super-Chief Electoral Officer

By Tazoacha Asonganyi in Yaounde.

  

 The hullabaloo about senatorial elections persists, but the process of producing a new electoral register that some people claim would have produced a more acceptable Electoral College for the senatorial elections seems to be going on unperturbed. Meanwhile, Elections Cameroon (ELECAM) has been claiming that its activities are controlled by the electoral code, even if it is in violation of the code that it started the biometric registration of voters in Cameroon on October 3, 2012 and said it would last until February 28, 2013.

     With the approach of the closing date for the registration of voters, the election body’s promise that it would register some 7 million voters started haunting it, since it had hardly succeeded in registering up to 50% of the promised target. Therefore cries of low turnout started coming from all over the country, including from within ELECAM itself. And so the Super-Chief electoral officer, Paul Biya decreed that registration should continue for another month, until March 29, 2013; and so did it!

    As March 29 approaches, we are still hearing cries of voter apathy although ELECAM is claiming that they have already registered about 5 million voters. In addition, ELECAM is informing Cameroonians that even the March 29 deadline can be abridged by the Super-Chief, if he decides to convene the electoral corps today! In other words, ELECAM has no clear agenda that binds even their Super-Chief, as far as putting up a credible electoral roll is concerned.

    Yet, the standard approach for setting up a credible electoral roll using the biometric system is that this first phase of general registration of voters provides what would be called a “raw” – preliminary - list of voters. Following the first phase, the “raw” list is published in the various areas for verification and corrections. This second phase provides a “raw” corrected electoral roll. The “raw corrected” roll is then screened centrally with multibiometric identification technology containing a matching server to automatically detect and delete multiple registration to clean up the register. It is this cleaned up register that constitutes a national electoral register that can be used for free, fair and credible elections. Indeed, it is this last phase that should tell us how many eligible voters have been actually registered by ELECAM using the biometric voter registration system.

    Those with entrenched interests – the spoilers who made nonsense of past electoral registers: political thugs-cum-bandits-cum-party bigwigs – have been visibly and audibly active in the field to re-enact their exploits. If ELECAM goes through this process of editing the raw list, as it is expected to, the number of registered voters in Cameroon may still be quite low. The low figures would be a reflection of the general lack of confidence in the electoral body. The lack of confidence is due to the general perception that since Paul Biya appointed mainly people from the CPDM into the elections management body, they do not meet the legal prescription that they should be “independent personalities … reputed for their stature, moral uprightness, intellectual honesty, patriotism, neutrality and impartiality.”

    Unfortunately, since this perception was created, the electoral body has so far not made enough effort to convince the public that they deserve the public’s confidence. Recently newspapers reported that UPC bigwigs were arrested in Douala because they were marching in the streets with placards carrying anti-ELECAM messages reading: “No to ELECAM,” “ELECAM was put in place to continually rig elections and maintain Paul Biya and his friends in power…” Indeed, such UPC messages can be said to be the epitome, the metaphor for the thoughts that shape the behaviour of eligible voters in Cameroon. The people think that ELECAM does not enjoy independence of action that is supposed to help it to build public confidence in the outfit.
   Public confidence in an electoral body is crucial to the success of elections and the cooperation of the public in case of some unforeseen hitches.  It is because Professor Attahiru Jega the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (INEC) enjoyed the trust and confidence of the electorate that when he postponed the national assembly elections of April 2, 2010 at the last minute, the mobilized electorate showed patience and understanding. It is because of confidence in the Kenyan Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) that the recent confusion caused by “a virus” did not lead to chaos. I doubt that with the perception Cameroonians have of ELECAM, the election body would enjoy such confidence and trust if there were an unforeseen last minute hitch in the Cameroon electoral process.

   In the past, elections failed in Cameroon because the electoral register was “doctored” by administrative officials, political self-seekers and bandits to ensure victory for Paul Biya and CPDM candidates before each Election Day. How ELECAM proceeds to produce the electoral register that will be used for the upcoming elections will re-enforce or break the negative perception the electoral body is presently grappling with.

PAP OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON THE SENATORIAL ELECTION IN CAMEROON: THE LAMP UNDER THE TABLE

It would be recalled that, prior to the last presidential election,the head of the People’s Action Party – PAP – met several Camerounese opposition leaders to argue the case for a consensual candidate for a coalition of the willing. Some stigmatized PAP as an adventurer in time. Others lightly dismissed the PAP vision on the faulty premiss that they were of sterner stuff.

Earlier on in 2008, the PAP leader had stood against constitutional amendment on the ground that it would move the country backwards by “200 years”. It has taken some opposition leaders five years to come to terms with the foresight.

Similarly did it take some opposition parties five months to grasp ELECAM’s illegal registration of voters which PAP had decried in alone voice in the wilderness for months. Very like a lamp under the table! Of course yes!

Is not it true that the 2008 constitutional amendment provided that where senatorial election was to hold prior to the election of regional councilors, municipal councilors alone would constitute the electoral college? Therefore are we at sea that the very parties that, for personal reasons, refused, failed or neglected to oppose the amendment should today purport to oppose the conduct of senatorial election in accordance with the said constitutional amendment.

Honesty requires that we admit that the constitutional prerogative, or at least discretion, to call the electorate to the poll is exclusively that of the President of the Republic. Any counter argument and argument grounded on appropriate timing are based on morality ratherthan on legality. It may be instructive to recollect that whereas there is morality in the law, the law is not morality. We pray everyone to bear with us that we of PAP are unable to find anything even remotely illegal in the calling of the electoral college to the poll to elect senators.

Some have invoked legitimacy to fault the electoral process. Here too do we find it difficult to bring our minds to the contention. It is common knowledge that until new councilors are elected, the councilors in office enjoy the plenitude of rights and prerogatives recognized to elected councilors. Extended mandate is not any less a mandate than the original mandate in the eyes of the law. If we recognize that parliamentarians enjoying extended mandate do validly enact laws, including the finance law, we are estopped from positing different considerations for municipal councilors.

We of PAP have ever held that good governance is predicated on the enactment of good laws! So it is because not only is the law supreme but laws are applied as they are and not as they ought to be. The
enactment of good laws then should be the mainstay of every serious political party’s agenda. Therefore must our fragmented opposition represented in parliament accept here and now that, when called upon to enact laws henceforth, the people’s interest must override partisan and personal considerations. The starting point could well be our acknowledging that it is unpatriotic and rather presumptuous for any single opposition party to contend, much less to assert, that consensus means the ruling party working in tandem with that particular opposition party to the exclusion of all others. It augurs awkwardly with both good leadership and statesmanship!

We beg to add that we ignore not the magnitude of the dust raised about precipitated senatorial election now after the President of the Republic had remained indifferent to popular calls for the putting in place of the institutions provided for in the 1996 constitutional revision for seventeen years. But much as the query is pertinent, we must not lose sight of the very nature of politics: availing oneself of propitious moments to stay in power or to seize power. And that is where all politicians are the same!

Let us confess that we prepared an uneven playground in the 2008 constitutional amendment, and we cannot now be heard to complain about the bitterness of the fruits of our labour! The contrary would be akin to endorsing our crying over spilt milk due to gross negligence on our part! A truly very good lesson that should guide our future political  actions divested of parochialism and sordid interest!
--
Communications & Public Relations,
People's Action Party, PAP
National Working Secretariat,
Buea, South West Region,
Cameroon.

Motto: Work - Peace - Justice

Tel: (00237) 78 35 80 29 / 94 99 87 43

*E-mail: papcameroon@yahoo.com,
presidentayah@gmail.com<presidentayah@gmail.com>

Cameroon:Another SDF bluff to be called!

By Tazoacha Asonganyi,Yaounde.

Recently, the press informed us of a declaration of Fru Ndi’s that there will be no senatorial elections in Cameroon until Paul Biya meets with him. This was said to be a statement he made to those who attended his rally in one of the towns in the North West region. A few days after the “threat” was published, Paul Biya called his bluff (for the umpteenth time!) and went ahead to convene the senatorial elections for 14 April 2013. Last Saturday, the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the SDF met in Bameda and “adopted” the Fru Ndi threat, calling on Paul Biya to urgently dialogue with Fru Ndi, otherwise there will be a disruption of peace.

This is how past “resolutions” of NEC like “no good laws, no elections” came about.  Like this one, it was a “slip” during a rally that made its way to NEC, and without profound reflection on how it would be enforced, it was taken up as a resolution!

Now, no one knows what Fru Ndi means by wanting to meet Paul Biya. He has met him several times before, and knows very well that he never kept any promise he made to him. He met him early this year when he joined others like him to salute Paul Biya. He told Paul Biya that he would want senatorial elections to be held after the upcoming municipal and parliamentary elections. Paul Biya has ignored his wishes and gone ahead to convene the senatorial elections for 14 April 2013. Instead of getting the people out to put pressure on Paul Biya, he is wasting his time telling everybody who wants to listen that he wants to meet Paul Biya! This is a new type of politics: confused, lack of preparation, visionless!

Interestingly, many people are saying that Paul Biya has really exaggerated this time around. These are people who do not know Paul Biya. If you lock up the public service of your country during elections because the civil servants are out campaigning for you in the field, you have really exaggerated. If you use state resources for your personal campaigns, you have really exaggerated. If you convene the electoral corps of a country like Cameroon during the rainy season, you have really exaggerated. If you allow everybody around you to be corrupt so that you can use it as a weapon of control, you have really exaggerated. If you create a political environment where there are over 200 political parties in a country of some 20 million people, and yet do not allow a two round election for some of the parties to be useful to the country,  you have really exaggerated! So how much do we want Paul Biya to exaggerate before we know that exaggeration is one of his trademarks? He exaggerates, not for the sake of the country, but for his own sake!

In politics, one has to always reflect on lived experience in order to conceive more effective actions. It is such permanent reflection that makes it possible for a human grouping to create new beginnings, new openings and breakthroughs. A political party is supposed to be a “reflective” grouping that endures, evolves over time and generates responses to new challenges that arise from time to time, ensuring that collegial, consensual, and consultative – collective – leadership is privileged over leadership based on command, control, and diktats. The SDF has issued a lot of threats before, which all ended in naught. Issuing threats without a very clear idea on how the threat would be implemented, or converting half-thought-out statements at rallies into party resolutions is nothing short of ridicule.

A journalist has already asked Fru Ndi the following question: This is not the first time you are threatening that elections will not hold if things are not done correctly. But nothing has ever been done to stop these elections. What strategy do you intend to use this time more than ever before?

And Fru Ndi gives the type of answer we have heard before: My first weapon is the population. Let the population fight now to defend their country. We believe in “power to the people.” I am calling on each and everyone to prepare for the great fight that is about to start…

True, the most potent counter-force to a neocolonial regime like the one we have in Cameroon is “the population” – the people. However, as Mandela says in his biography, Long Walk to Freedom, a slogan should not end at just providing a link between the organization and the people it seeks to lead, or at synthesizing a particular grievance into a succinct and captivating phrase; the party should prepare the people to live the reality of the slogan.

 

The SDF has neither prepared the people to use the power their slogan promises them, nor to assume it. For this reason and more, this new bluff of the SDF will fizzle out like the others, due to the fault of its leadership!