Race for SDF National Chairmanship: Limbe District Chairman, Godden Zama, tipped to run
Ahead of the elective convention of the Social Democratic Front, SDF, slated for October 27-28 in Yaounde, some bigwigs of the party are being tipped to run for the post of National Chairman, to replace the deceased emblematic chairman, Ni John Fru Ndi.
The grapevine has it that among those who will take part in the race for the SDF national chairmanship is the party’s Limbe Electoral District Chairman, Ndenge Godden Zama.
Zama, we gathered, will be locking horns with the party’s 1st National Vice President, Joshua Osih Nambangi, and others who have also been tipped to be eying the coveted post of National Chairman of the SDF.
The young, dynamic, charismatic and firebrand Ndenge Godden Zama, many political analysts say, is well suited for the position given his huge political repertoire and achievements. As Limbe Electoral District Chairman, Zama, for years, gave the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, CPDM, in the area sleepless nights, particularly during election periods.
While it had often been mooted that the tussle for the SDF top job will pit Hon Jean Michel Nintcheu, erstwhile Littoral Regional Chairman of the party, and Hon Joshua Osih, first vice national president of the SDF, with Nintcheu having been excluded from the party among the G27+ members, Osih, many opine, was in pole position. But with Ndenge Godden Zama now tipped to enter the race, Osih, analysts hold, will be given a good run for his money.
Contacted by phone, Ndenge Godden Zama neither confirmed nor refuted the information.
“Where ever you got that information from, I don’t know,” he said, adding that the SDF is mourning its National Chairman and so all party activities not related to the funeral have been put on hold.
However, Zama said it is the right of every SDF supporter to aspire to any position within the party.
It should be noted that before the SDF National Chairman, John Fru Ndi’s demise on June 13, 2023, SDF, the once vibrant leading opposition party, had seen its political fortunes dwindle considerably. SDF supporters, analysts say, are looking forward to having a new leadership that would take the party back to its 1990-type vibrancy. Ndenge Godden Zama, given that he is youthful and charismatic, political observers say, may just be the right person for this, if he decides to run as is being mooted within political circles.
Other candidates eying the position
Meanwhile, it is also being whispered within political circles that the former SDF Member of Parliament, MP, for the Bafut/Tubah constituency in the North West Region, Hon Fusi Naamukong, may also throw his hat into the ring to aspire for the position of SDF National Chairman.
Ndenge Godden Zama the man
A graduate of the University of Buea, Ndenge Godden Zama is a businessman, education, and football promoter.
He was Secretary General of the Limbe Electoral District from 2011 to 2014 when he was overwhelmingly elected District Chairman.
Among other notable actions Zama, as District Chairman carried out, he stood against destruction of artisan houses in Limbe, advocated for the construction of durable market stalls, fought against the sale of community water projects to private companies, campaigned for the National Oil Refining Company, SONARA, to engage in corporate social responsibility, massively mobilized youth militancy in the SDF in Limbe.
He also carried out many social programs to engage supporters and sympathizers of the SDF. It was therefore no doubt that during his tenure of office, the SDF saw its supporters in Limbe increase in leaps and bounds.
After the Anglophone crisis broke out in 2016, Zama, was in 2017, arrested and detained. He was, however, later released by the President of the Republic after his innocence was established.
By Solomon Tembang* First published in The Guardian Post newspaper
