Ambassador Robert P. Jackson and John Fru Ndi have discussed challenges and opportunities for free, fair, peaceful elections in Cameroon.

Five months after taking office as U.S Ambassador to Cameroon, Robert P. Jackson visited opposition SDF National Chairman, Ni John Fru Ndi in his Bamenda office on April 12, 2011. It was one of many stages of the Ambassador’s three-day outing to discover the North West Region.

The clock struck 9.30 a.m. when H.E Robert P. Jackson was received by Chairman, Fru Ndi. The in-camera discussions went on for an hour and at the end the diplomat told Cameroon Tribune, “I was in the North West visiting projects and I got the opportunity to meet SDF Chairman, Fru Ndi with whom we discussed challenges and opportunities of the North West Region. Chairman, Fru Ndi helped contribute to my understanding and I came away with a good understanding of the challenges of the region”.

He said one of such challenges is to “ensure that we have transparent elections in Cameroon and the American government is committed to push for free, fair and peaceful elections here. The Chairman and I had a good discussion on how we can achieve that.” The US diplomat said, “I also discovered the Chairman as a very noble man, a man with a clear vision and clear ideas and I applaud his determination and commitment to transparency”.

 «SDF Single-handedly Pushed for Increase In ELECAM Membership»

SDF National Chairman, Fru Ndi talked to Cameroon Tribune after meeting U.S Ambassador, Robert P. Jackson. 

What emerged from your meeting with the U.S Ambassador, Robert P. Jackson ?

The Ambassador was on a tour of the North West to visit projects which they fund. On his way back, he decided to visit and find out our position in preparations towards the next presidential elections. I took time to tell him that the SDF arguments against ELECAM have been recognized by the Head of State with the increase in the number of ELECAM Board members. I also told him that all the six new members are supposed to be recruited from the SDF party because, but for the SDF, all other political parties had already expressed their satisfaction with ELECAM in its present form and have been mobilizing their militants to register towards the elections. I mean political party leaders like Bello Bouba Maigari, Adamu Ndam Njoya, etc. If the SDF pushed for the increase of ELECAM members by six, then we deserve to have all the six. That is the only thing we will have to show to our militants for them to be able to register for the fight for free, fair and transparent elections to continue. We want Cameroon to be saved from the upheavals currently rocking North African countries.

Could we conclude that the amendment of the ELECAM law is a fallout of your December 2010 meeting with President Paul Biya?

I will not like to take the credit though the SDF single-handedly pushed for the increase of ELECAM membership.

Parliament has also amended the law on elections and empowered the Constitutional Council to proclaim election results and no more ELECAM. Any comment ?”

The Constitutional Council will now proclaim results after receiving documentation from ELECAM where our people are expected to be involved. If the SDF is effectively involved, then we will also have information and arguments on which to file petitions unlike in the past where the CPDM exercised a domineering attitude in the constitution of the elections body. If the opportunity is given to the SDF , we will try to get as many neutral people as we can to build our democracy.

So, how soon shall SDF militants officially start registering towards the presidential elections ?

You cannot quote me ever telling our militants not to register or to register for the elections. It is the Cameroonian people that have been resisting the mobilization to register for the elections with arguments that previous elections in Cameroon have always been rigged and won in advance. It is credibility in the system that people expect to inspire them to register.