Ni Fru Ndi Ridicules Professor Asonganyi’s Thesis

Benjamin Ngah in Bamenda

           The scene was Bamenda. A hand full of people had congregated. Some of them enthusiasts and a majority were renegades of the main opposition party, the SDF. Others, well-wishers properly invited to witness the launch of the Book Cameroon: Difficult Choices in A Failed Democracy by Professor Asonganyi, a university Don and one time SDF Secretary General.

          The book which in most parts is devoted to expound on the renowned Professor’s antic in politics especially in the SDF and the whys and wherefores of his divorce with his one time sweet heart of a party, the Social Democratic Front. The book until today the 20^th of August, 2015 with Ni Fru Ndi dissection has been acclaimed and greeted across the country with euphoria as a master piece. Professor Asonganyi’s memoires in the book are succinctly and wryly told with ease.   

           Like all one-sided stories told with delicate and kind ire, the book, Cameroon: Difficult Choices in A Failed Democracy is quite receptive and convincing to prejudiced minds. These kinds of minds are the minds that quickly conferred on the author “mention tres honorable avec felicitation” until Fru made a methodical anatomy of the book not only as a book seller but as one who has read widely too.        

         Though duly invited to the launch, his presence was doubted. His presence in the hall shocked many and sent adrenaline flowing down their spines. Some of the speakers at the sight of him immediately started editing and rehearsing their notes. This reporter saw one of them fidgeting with a pen, crossing parts of his expose and like a bird drinking water raised his head up and down from time to time. This killed the articulacy and logic in their presentations making them wishy-washy. Some of them quaked as they presented making one to think that they were not the authors of their own very texts. The tension was vivid since the fear was elsewhere. The organizers of the book launch according to some press award feared disruption from the SDF and Ni Fru Ndi buddies. This explained the presence of security officers although some say their presence was a deterrent Boko Haram.

          Ni Fru Ndi, the National chairman of the SDF since creation whose name, the SDF, his late wife (peace be with her) are some of the main subjects treated in the Professor’s memoires, was given the opportunity to unveil the book. This opportunity, whether designed or undersigned gave Ni Fru Ndi the leeway to x-ray the book and tell his own side of the story. A story that might sound trivial but which reduced and rendered Asonganyi accounts or book to mere toilet paper.