Fru Ndi was born
in Baba II, near Bamenda in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. The title of Ni,
which indicates respect, was given to him early in life. He attended school in
Cameroon at the Baforchu Basel Mission and at the Santa Native Authority School
before going to Nigeria in 1957 to study at the Lagos City College and to work.
In 1966, he returned to Cameroon and got involved in vegetable trade. He ran a
bookstore known as the Ebibi Bookshop in Bamenda. He equally headed the Public
Works Department PWD Football Club, Bamenda from 1979 to 1988. He also headed
the Lions Club International branch in Bamenda from 1987 to 1988. He eventually
was a candidate of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, CPDM in
the Mezam Central Constituency during the single-party1988 Parliamentary
Elections which he lost to a different to a different CPDM list headed by Simon
Achidi Achu another political heavy weight from the Northwest Region of
Cameroon who’s held many important positions in Government including that of
Prime Minister.
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| Ni John Fru Ndi and Paul Biya in Hand shake |
Ni John Fru Ndi
was one of the Co-Founders of the Social Democratic Front, the most influential
Opposition Political Party, since 1990. He was elected as the SDF's National
Chairman at its 1st Ordinary National Convention, held in Bamenda in May 1992.
In the October
1992 Presidential Elections, he made a strong showing against President Paul
Biya, losing with 36% of the vote against Paul Biya's 40% according to highly
disputed official results. In Ni John Fru Ndi's stronghold in the
Northwest Region, he officially won 86.3%. This election was condemned as
fraudulent by the opposition. Ni John Fru Ndi and third place opposition
candidate Maigaria Bouba Bello unsuccessfully sought for the election to be
annulled by the Supreme Court. Amidst the outbreak of violence in the Northwest
Region that followed the election, Fru Ndi was placed under house arrest in
late October 1992. After about a month, he was released and On January 20,
1993, Fru Ndi, along with his wife Rose, attended the inauguration of United
State’s President Bill Clinton. He and Rose were photographed with Clinton and
wife Hilary. Fru Ndi's presence at the event had a symbolic impact in Cameroon,
giving the impression of recognition and legitimacy in light of Fru Ndi's claim
to have won the 1992 election.
Along with other
opposition parties, the SDF boycotted the October 1997 Presidential Election.
Fru Ndi was re-elected as SDF Chairman at the party's fifth congress in April
1999, receiving 1,561 votes from delegates against 40 for his challenger,
Chretien Tabetsing.
Ni John Fru Ndi
came in again as the SDF candidate in the 2004 Presidential Elections and
according to official results; he came out second place with 17.40% of the vote
against 70.92% for incumbent President Paul Biya. His best results were in the
Northwest Region where he recorded 68.16%, followed by the West Region with
45.04%, the Littoral Region with 32.71%, and the Southwest Region with 30.59%.
Chairman Ni John
Fru Ndi insisted that there was fraud in the July 2007 Parliamentary Elections
and called for it to be annulled. In the election, the SDF won the second
highest number of seats but was far behind the ruling CPDM, which won an
overwhelming majority of seats.
In a dramatic
twist in manner of approach, Ni John Fru Ndi said on November 14, 2007 that he
would be willing to meet with Biya. He was subtly changing to an approach of
dialogue with the ruling party. He said that Biya had not invited him for a
meeting despite efforts he’d made to meet Paul Biya. This was in contradiction
with Paul Biya's statement on French television that Fru Ndi had not responded
to his invitation for them to meet.
On April 12, 2008,
Ni John Fru Ndi called for a National Day of Mourning to commemorate
Cameroonians who died during the 2008 anti government protests and the
"death of democracy" in Cameroon. Fru Ndi said that he believed the
2008 changes to the Constitution were intended to enable President Biya to be lifelong
dictator of Cameroon and that the changes would institutionalize corruption,
immunity, and inertia.
Fru Ndi once more
stood unsuccessfully as a candidate in the October 2011 Presidential Election,
placing a distant second behind Biya. A few days after the election, on October
17, 2011, Fru Ndi, alongside other presidential candidates, called an emergency
meeting to demand that Biya annul the election.
In the Aprile 2013
Senate Elections,Ni John Fru Ndi stood as a candidate in the Northwest Region
considered to be his primary support base. This exercise marked the creation of
the Upper House of Parliament as previously only the National Assembly had
existed. Fru Ndi failed to win a seat in the Senate. Many explanations were put
forth to explain such unexpected results in the Northwest Region. Some quarters
said SDF councilors in the Region had been paid of and their loyalty carted
away to the advantage of the CPDM.
Below is one of the many interviews that Ni John Fru
Ndi has accorded in his busy political life which is indisputably one of the
most hectic on the Cameroon Political Landscape.
This interview
was carried out by Sarah Nduma Ekema, Yvonne Massa Ako, Nester Asonganyi,
Isidore Abah, Yerima Kini Nsom & Charlie Ndi Chia and was published by
Cameroon Postline.
Part of the interview is published here.
Mr. Chairman as a political midwife,
I would, at least, want for you to set this interview rolling by tracing the
path so far travelled by the Social Democratic Front, SDF, since its Caesarian
birth in 1990.
It’s been a rough and difficult path
because if you ask somebody that has been drinking wine in Yaounde to climb
Mount Kilimanjaro or Mount Cameroon; he won’t make it half-way to the top. That
is how difficult the SDF story has been. In other words, if you abruptly wake
people up from sleep and you tell them that there is war outside, it is likely
that many of them will, in the ensuing confusion, run into the enemy camp.
Coming back to the SDF, there are people who joined the party, thinking that
victory was the very next day. They already saw themselves as Ministers but
when such positions were long in coming, they started fighting against the very
cause for which the SDF was initiated. It is rather unfortunate that some of
these people who resigned from the party have died but I thank God and the
ordinary local people who have stood by the truth, faced the truth and are
still fighting for genuine change.
Mr. Biya opened the floodgates
for the proliferation of political parties. Even from ‘Day One’ after we had
procured the necessary documentation for the party to be created, they asked if
we had consulted Cameroonians from at least seven Provinces to have their Ok.
Then they hurriedly approved Gustav Essaka’s party whose membership was limited
only to himself and his wife, right up to when he passed on, years after.
Essaka was given the opportunity at every twist to berate Fru Ndi on
television, even if it meant doing so in German. I doubt how many Cameroonians
understood what he was trying to put across to them in German. So we faced all
manner of intimidation and blackmail from the state. At that time they said I
borrowed cement from CIMENCAM. Later on they said I rendered Cameroon Bank
bankrupt but when they, who brought Cameroon Bank to its knees discovered that
I had money in it, they instead paid me cash. Seeing all that we have gone
through, one can only thank God Almighty, who gave us the stamina, the
intelligence and the people with whom we weathered the storm. It has not been a
smooth ride so far.
You would, of course, agree with me
that it has been a little more than a generation since the birth of the party.
In other words, it is, by all means, an adult, with a right to its own wife and
kids. How many of these kids has the party sired, raised and liberated,
politically speaking; or is the grand old Fru Ndi still interested in making
all the babies all by himself?
The Paramount Fon of Kom is by far
older than Fru Ndi. He is still making babies. Other Fons who are by far older
than Fru Ndi are still making babies; I do not buy your logic here. But suffice
to say that the SDF came as a Socialist Democratic Party and we have practised
that democracy up to this point. So far, it is only the SDF leadership
that has entertained competitiveness for the Chairmanship of the party.
Whereas others simply declare themselves Presidential candidates, the SDF
organises primaries for the selection of the Presidential candidates. At
different intervals, people who knew nothing about the party like one gentleman
who flew in from France, took up residence at the Hilton and brought in people
to see how he was going to crush Fru Ndi. He was inviting people and feeding
them because he wanted to takeover the Chairmanship, but when he lost he
disappeared into thin air and since then he hasn’t indicated any interest in
the party. We equally have people whom we have prepared and sent to the Senate,
Parliament and Councils. When they lose their political positions some of them
don’t return to the party; yet, you have others that even when they lose, they
still attend NEC meetings.
We asked this question because you
only recently celebrated your 73rd birthday and by your own
reckoning, you are “living on borrowed time.” How does a grand old man, living
on borrowed time, plan on raising 21st century kids, even if they
were mere political zygotes?
Fru Ndi talks to Journalists at his
Bamenda residence.
The choices of people we send to
Parliament are young. The youngest Parliamentarian in the first, second and
third assemblies came from the SDF. One of the two youngest Senators is from
the SDF. We are, by so doing, exposing them to part of the training that is
required for leadership roles. You see, I didn’t contest for Parliamentary
elections because at one moment Cameroonians voted me as their Head of State.
And then it occurred to me that I need not be scrambling with younger people to
be a Councillor, Mayor or Parliamentarian.
But Mr. Chairman you took part in
the Senate Election
Well, I went in as an elected
person, not as an appointed candidate like some people came to tell me to meet
Mr. Biya and asked him to appoint me. I went in because people kept forcing me
and asking me that “why don’t you go in for this election and have a feel of
it?” I didn’t go in because I wanted to. I went in and won in Mezam against
Simon Achidi Achu. But you see, they have come to the same Mezam and taken
Achu, the Fons of Bali and Ngenwui. So what is so special about Mezam that
entitles it to three Senators?
When almost everyone else was
puss-footing on the issue of confronting Biya’s totalitarian regime, you belled
the cat, so to speak and some measure of democracy came about in this country.
How would you compare your rating then, when you were at once, feared,
respected, revered and even idolized? Please don’t ask me to ask the people
because I won’t take that for an answer.
Well but that would be part of the
answer because as celebrated journalists that you are, you must have been following
the political trends of the country. I have never stood at any rally to beat my
chest and saying “I, Fru Ndi have…”, but I have always talked of “we have…” You
can always ask the people what they still see in this man. I still enjoy lots
of protection from the people. I can hardly drive through a place without
people wanting to touch my car.
But they also rush to touch Biya’s
car, even at the risk of being shot by his bodyguards.
Well, Biya has the money to give
them, which I lack. Take note, if a Cameroonian is shot with a bag of
money, he would die smiling, because they believe that any other thing can wait
but let they have their money.
I was on my way to Kribi once,
passing through Akomte to Mann and a woman took an empty bottle of beer and
said “Mr. Chairman, I’m seeing you through this bottle, because there is
nothing inside; so if you can give me something to drink, I will vote you.” I
told her that I want people to vote me with a clear conscience, not people who
have been deceived and conditioned by alcohol. When I’m passing people are
running to see the Fru Ndi who was yesterday and still is, today. When you look
at the parties which Government helped to create and named “Presidential
Majority”, you start asking yourself what is it that makes a man start a party
with an ideology, programme and turns around to say, “this party was formed,
but I want to support Mr. Biya.” And when you meet them, they give you their
business cards on which is written, “Presidential Majority”. So you see, such
people have taken the “Presidential Majority” as a business, by which they can
make money, as opposed to a party that can talk politics, convince people and
propose positive change.
Mr. Biya and his cohorts must be
very formidable political gladiators, hard nuts to crack, do you think? Because
for 24 long years since you made the first challenge and fought with the
furiousness of a wounded lion, they haven’t budged. On the contrary, many of
your political foot soldiers and other disciples have given up. Some have even
joined him, taking along with them some of your most treasured secrets, tactics
and all that?
We’ve wrestled it and if today, I’m
still talking, it is because I still believe in what we started off some 24
years ago. True, some of my best soldiers have defected with my ideas and
joined him and those that they couldn’t take, they stole. When we started, we
said we wanted Cameroon to change. If Mr. Biya took those ideas and effected
the change and Cameroonians saw the change for themselves and said truly, Fru
Ndi, this man has taken your ideas and changed this country, they will support
him. I read this man’s book, (Simon Mann) who organized a failed coup d’état in
Equatorial Guinea and was arrested, locked in Zimbabwe for about five years
before being transferred to Equatorial Guinea. What he said was that when he
accepted to execute a coup in Africa, he knew that he was going to be either
killed or make millions for himself. When he was caught, he knew that he was
going to be killed. When he was transferred to Equatorial Guinea he spent two
years in prison before President Obiang Nguema called him and asked to be told
who was behind the coup and what were his grievances were. The man opened up
and gave him the reason the man who plotted the coup advanced. The President
ordered that he be released. The President of Equatorial Guinea is building
houses, making the people live comfortably and today in Equatorial Guinea,
there is no opposition because he is doing what the people were yearning for.
That’s why when you travel from Europe coming back home, you see most of the
whites disembarking in Malabo, implying that there is something here that
Cameroon lacks. If Biya had used the ideas that have been stolen from the SDF
just like the President in Equatorial Guinea is doing, then it would have been
good. The money Mr. Biya is buying a few consciences with, if he had invested
it money in projects, then Cameroon would have long been a better place. Let us
start from the universities… you have students in the University of Yaounde I
who at one time hadn’t benches, water and electricity. So much was absent. You
come back to our local society; they’ve “given” schools to nearly every
neighbourhood. People from those neighbourhoods build the schools and pay PTA
teachers to teach their children. Look at the roads, just from Babajou
here to Bamenda; if you have a heart attack and they are rushing
you to the hospital, you are most likely to die before you reach Bamenda
or soon after. People who cannot afford bottled water drink all the mud. At
times you find mud in the water that people drink here. The same thing holds in
Yaounde. It is absurd that in the heart of the rainy season, Cameroonians lack
water. Cameroonians are paying exorbitant bills for electricity that is
hydro-generated, far higher than countries whose electrical power supply is
thermal. Cameroon is blessed with different sources where electricity can be
generated from but the Government has decided to tie everybody to Edea and
Song-Lou-Lou.
But Mr. Chairman there is Memvele
and Lom-Panga coming up now?
We started hearing of Memvele and
Lom-Panga a long time ago. In 1992, when the SDF boycotted the election, Mr.
Biya said let’s come together and discuss development. “We will work on the
Memvele and Lom-Panga together. I have sent people to France canvas for the
money.” That was in 1992 and the projects are only taking off in 2014.
Don’t you think from 1992 to 2014 is
too early compared to the famed Ring Road whose construction he promised to
personally supervise?
I was at the grandstand when he
talked of the Ring Road. Coincidentally, I was sitting next to the late
Bongadu. She was full of praises… “See how handsome the President looks; look
at our President, so clean and shining. I told her that ‘Ma’am, with all due
respect, that might be the ugly face of Cleopatra.’ The President said he was
going to personally supervise the road and that Bamenda people will never go to
Yaounde to chase files again. So after he said this, how many people have died
on the way to Yaounde to chase files and how many have died at the National
Social Insurance Fund chasing their monies just because justice has eluded
them?
The roads that the late
Ahidjo, (some people say was not educated) built, Biya is unable to maintain
them. At some periods of the year, it takes one a whole day to drive from
Maroua because the roads are bad. The stadia that Ahidjo built… we have
participated in international matches both at the world and African levels but
we have nothing to show for it. While other countries are building stadia from
their own fallouts, Cameroon has nothing to show for it and because of the rate
of theft, embezzlement, bribery and corruption; it is only today that Cameroon
is happy that CAF has given us the opportunity to host the African Cup of
Nations. Is it only Fru Ndi as a politician that is feeling this or it is
felt by every Cameroonian.
Before we proceed Mr. Chairman, are
you still nursing political/Presidential hopes? We ask this because from all
indications, Biya has willed that he must die in power. We want to state why
here.
In the SDF, it is not the Chairman
who declares his Presidential ambition. I made it clear in the early part of
this interview that when we have a Presidential election, we go through
primaries to pick a candidate. Let me tell you that there two cousins signed
the SDF “birth certificate”; late Dr. Siga Asanga and myself. I remember
your friend Hebert Boh who used it as a slap on the face that what party is
this? The Chairman is Baba II, the Secretary General Baba II. The two brave
Baba II people had the courage to come out when no person else had. They were a
few people who were invited for us to sit down and talk. Despite this fact, we
still took that risk; we still stood elections and when they said Asanga and I
were related, so, he should be changed, the argument that was put forward was
that Asanga braved the odds and launched the SDF and that if some lily-livered
man was introduced into the fray at that crucial moment of the party’s life only
for him to chicken out like typical cowards would do, it would not bode well
for the party. So this is the same argument that some people still bring
up today. So take it from me, if tomorrow I say will not be standing for
Presidential election what will you the journalists say? Most of you would say
“hey! Biya has given Fru Ndi food to eat that is why he is chickening out.”
Not long again one of my
collaborators came up with the idea that we could contribute even FCFA 100 each
to enable the party raise its financial base. I told him the idea was good, but
that we had given out party cards, fabrics, caps, T-shirts and other items to
be sold, but that most times the proceeds were not remitted and that those
people who were in possession of such money were very likely to resign from the
SDF. When you bring such people to be the Chairman of the party like the
gentleman who came in from France, and took off as soon he lost the election,
are you telling me that gentleman was coming to run the party or sell the
party? I’m not campaigning here. What I’m saying is that at anytime
I stand election with a younger person and the people bestow confidence in him
and think that he can continue from there… fine.
I’m not going to hold the
Chairmanship of the SDF till death, neither am I turning the party into a
monarchy to handover to my son like people started mooting when he ran for the
Council election. He went in for the Council on his own merit. I never knew. I
only learned of it after he had won his primaries and when we sat in the
investiture committee to determine the calibre of Councillors to send into the
City Council, different people made a case for my son, that he had the
requisite qualification. So I want you, as journalists, to once in a while,
appreciate the calibre of people that we put in the Council.
Did your failure to make the Senate
diminish your authority as party leader in anyway? Better still, are those of
your party who won seats at the Senate now considering themselves more
important to the party project than you?
Well you forewarned me in one of
your questions not to ask you to go and ask the people but I think you should
ask the Senators what they think of their Chairman. They still give me the
honour and respect. They still know that they are under the party and that it
is the party that has sent them into the Senate, Parliament and Councils. They
are still aware that party is led by somebody to whom they should give their
support. You see, the thing with most of these young men make is their obsession
with challenging Fru Ndi is because Fru Ndi also challenges Mr. Biya. So they
have to challenge him too show that they have also come of age. But then, you
have to challenge Fru Ndi by doing something good for people to see and feel.
But if you think challenging Fru Ndi is merely by standing at a rally to either
insult him on this issue or that, the question would be what have you done? I
gave an open cheque to go into the Councils, Parliament and Senate. People are
judging them now on what they are doing and among them are young shoots that
are coming out. For instance, my Senatorial Group leader went into Parliament
as the youngest Parliamentarian and he has grown in the SDF system. Today, he
is leader of the party in the West Region and also the party’s leader in the
Senate.
What is the relationship between you
and political office holders of your party? I am thinking here of Mayors,
Parliamentarians, Senators etc?
They have the laws of the party that
govern them to be where they are and do what they are supposed to do.
They owe no allegiance to Fru Ndi in the execution of their office. They
do their work. For 24 years, have you ever heard that Fru Ndi went into a
Mayor’s office and harassed him; asked him for money? Or have you ever heard in
Yaounde that I passed through either the office of my Parliamentary Group
leader, the Questor or any such person? No I don’t go there. I allow them to do
their work. They know that as long as they are there, they are serving the
people, the party and not Fru Ndi, and to serve the people, they must work well
as Parliamentarians, using their micro-project grants judiciously.
Statistics released last year
indicated that the best Mayor in the country was an SDF Mayor; the Mayor of
Kumbo. It was not me who came up with those statistics. You see, you can never
hide smoke. If you cover smoke it will always find its way out. This was one of
the youngest Mayors I had in those days and who has grown in the system. While
others thought that it was their time to chop, others came and said it was time
to work and they did a good job for the people. The people appreciated and lent
them their support
We hear that most of them are often
expected to owe some sort of allegiance to you; that they must kiss your feet
to get to what is considered by the common man as money-spinning enterprises.
We also hear that no sooner than some of the “stooges” get your nod to get into
office do they start growing horns
Take note that Government gives out
money to political leaders whose parties are represented in Parliament, but the
SDF is the only party whose money is paid directly into the party’s bank
account. Fru Ndi is not a signatory to this account. The
signatories to this account are the party’s Treasurer, the Vice Treasurer and
Financial Secretary. The Parliamentarians have certain amounts of money that
are deducted from their salaries at Parliament and paid directly to the party’s
account. I do not take money from anywhere, whether the money is spinning right
or left.
There are allegations that the
Chairman and a clique of people are the ones managing the finances of the
party, while people like the Treasurer and the Secretary General of the party
are sidelined. What is your reaction to these allegations?
I don’t have much to say concerning
the finances of the party. Like I said earlier, all the finances of the party
go through the party’s account. I am not a signatory to that account. It is the
Finance Committee which often sits down at intervals and draws the budget of
the party I only come there to append my signature, before which I may disagree
with one or two points; but I am not the one who draws the party’s budget. The
Treasurer, the Vice Treasurer, the Financial Secretary and the Deputy Chairman
oversee the budget. In fact these accounts are open for scrutiny and for us to
be accountable for the state audit when time does come.
Many news media are overly critical
of you; some of them see you as having compromised the revolution that you
ignited 24 years back; others even say you are on Mr. Biya’s payroll and that
you have enough of his millions in your accounts to make you play hide and seek
with the destiny of the suffering masses. True or false?
The media are paid media by these
people to come out with such accusations against me.
Paid by who?
By their paymasters. You know that
there are several media houses that are on the payroll of people in Government,
contractors etc. They come out with one newspaper to insult somebody and when
they have insulted you they go to report back…
It is Fru Ndi that launched the SDF
in 1990 and that same 1990, we had the freedom of the press. For a long time,
the press in Cameroon was grossly censored. You had newspapers with obliterated
or sometimes outright blank pages. SDO’s were the ultimate, in fact, the de
facto Editors. They, and not even skilled journalists read your scripts,
“corrected” and either approved them for publication or had them banned
outright. So those journalists who are supporting the state in doing this and
those who say that Fru Ndi is now on Biya’s payroll have always been challenged
by me. Remember that when my former Secretary General, Asonganyi wrote that Fru
Ndi was wining and dining with Biya, I told him, Asonganyi, ‘yes’, and I asked
him if he had proof. When Mr. Biya came to Bamenda he said he was meeting me
for the first time… You see, even those who were working from within were not
different. The same group of people went round saying we should demystify Fru
Ndi and one NEC meeting was used only to see how they could demystify me. All
those agents of demystification went; some of them died, unfortunately, but the
SDF is still there, struggling and jogging on. “Gombo”, “Ayaba” or Hilton
journalism has tinted the face of democracy to an extent that people have to go
to Government officials to back-stab others to attain heights that they don’t
deserve. Fortunately most Cameroonians read between the lines and are able to
discern most of the disinformation as incorrect.
A certain story got me into
avoidable conflict with The Post Newspaper; they sat in a lawyer’s office and
cooked up a story that Fru Ndi has billions in his account in Europe.
But we did apologize…
Yes, you apologized, but that was
done in a lawyer’s office in Yaounde and your journalist that reported in Yaounde
knew that, because when he called me I told him that should he publish such a
story, he would be discrediting your newspaper or if you said you called Fru
Ndi and he said he had no account in Europe more so sponsored by the African
Confidential; African Confidential is a reputable organization, so don’t you
use your Cameroon dirty politics to soil their name. As soon as the article
came out, African Confidential came out not only to The Post but also to other
newspapers to state that they have no business nor neither had they indicated
anywhere that Fru Ndi owned billions.
All these accounts that Cameroon
journalists have kept on repeating they have never quoted the account number,
the bank and the amount of money inside. I have always said at rallies that if
you know that I have money in any foreign account, please set up a commission
to go get this money. But nobody has been able to come up with anything to show
that this is what we are talking about.
You are known to be very passionate
about farming. How much of farmland do you have, where, and what is the output?
How much farmland I have, I cannot
tell you but I am very, very passionate about farming, because for me to sit
here and you come with interviews and I hit this person or that, it doesn’t
help. When we formed the SDF, we said our mainstay was agriculture. I started
farming because I knew what I was doing. I couldn’t go and take a subject in
economics which I am not abreast of; but agriculture was supposed to be the
mainstay of the SDF, which was going to help over 60 percent of the Cameroonian
population. Journalists who have visited the farm will agree that if, in the
Northwest Region, we had 10 farmers copying what I am doing, then we would have
a better standpoint, rather than just sitting down and talking. What I am
doing now is ranching; there is so much quarrelling between the ranchers and
farmers. Yesterday the ranchers said that “this hill, that hill and the next,
are my hills”. But today, they cannot say that because the farming population
has increased and the very rancher who said the hills belongs to him has
delivered more children too and these children need their own land… so we have
to live together and see how we can improve on the land.
What is your personal commitment in
organic farming and how does it integrate with your “political farming”?
Well I would say I started off as a
book seller and then, got into farming. How farming integrates in political
life is that when I have farm work, I concentrate on it but as soon as my
political agenda comes up, I abandon the farm and concentrate on politics on a
full scale. Now that there are no elections and I am not touring, should I just
sit here, talking to people? I go to the farm. You know, the people who visit
this house everyday must eat and drink. I know it is expensive doing farming,
but along the line, you must teach people how to do the right things, because
today in the Northwest, I might be the only one who has improved on the
pastures of animals to graze on the same area.
This is because one of the problems
we have here in the Northwest Region is the transhumance, whereby animals have
to move on during the dry season because there is no grass to feed on… like in
Nkambe, were the grass in so stunted. But in areas where the pastures
have been invaded by grasses that the animals don’t eat, you can weed or spray
them to give way for new pastures. We have done this to show our people that,
you can do the mixed farming, have your crops, fruit trees and plant grass so
that the animals can eat them and will serve as paddocks. We have also shown
that the Fulani man can keep his cow and use the cow dung as fertilizer to
plant his corn.
I quarreled with a researcher who
was proposing his fertilizer to me. I showed him the healthy corns I
planted with animal droppings and asked to see his that was produced with
fertilizer. Just to know that if you take a bag of fertilizer, you may
just apply it on a few ridges, and what you plant on it might do well
during the first year, but the next year, the very spot may not give the same
yield. But if I plant with animal droppings and the next year plough and plant,
even if the animals do not sleep there again, it might not give the yield like
the first, but it would provide a yield better than if I had used fertilizer.
We want to encourage researchers to
adopt this method and see how much encouragement we can give local farmers to
do organic farming. When you are going towards Nso, you see animals tethered
beside the road. The dung these animals drop is often used to plant the healthy
corns that come from this area. If you take a bag of fertilizer that is sold
for FCFA 27,000 and plant corn, you cannot sell that corn for up to FCFA
20,000.
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