It was an emotion packed moment at the Bamenda Congress Hall last Thursday 6 November 2014 when for the first time in history, activists of the Southern Cameroon National Council, SCNC came out publicly and announced that they had dumped the movement for the Mezam I Section of the CPDM.

The several militants who could not immediately be counted came out during the high moment of the ceremony marking Biya’s 32 years in power and told the mammoth crowd of militants that they were deeply sorry to have belonged to the SCNC.

According to them, they have for long been misled by some individuals with selfish interest that President Biya did not like Anglophones and that they should seek the independence of the former British Southern Cameroons.

The new CPDM militants told the crowd that after seeing the enormous effort deployed by president Biya especially in the fight against Boko Haram as well as the preservation of peace at a time when all of Cameroon’s neighbors are on the brink of war or already in turmoil, they are convinced that President Biya is the right person to lead Cameroon.

For this reason, they apologized, and even wept that they have been misled for too long but have come to realize the truth. They all vowed to accompany president Biya in making Cameroon an emerging nation by the year 2035 through actively militating in the CPDM party at the level of the Mezam I Section.

One of the decamped militants, Asumbom Ludovicus told The Sun that the SCNC is being used by some individuals for personal gains given that each time he and a good number of his colleagues had to host SCNC flags anywhere especially on 1st October, they were each paid as much as 200,000frs to do so. After carrying the exercise on several occasions, he noted, the best solution was to come out and speak the truth by joining the party of truth which is the CPDM party.

Some 32 horses also representing the 32 years of president Paul Biay in power led a serious parade from the Bamenda congress hall to commercial avenue.

Meantime, some SDF militants also joined the SCNC activists to decamp to the CPDM further quoted the fact that they were fed up with the SDF which has not delivered all the things that it promised them. Minister Paul Atanga Nji also disclosed that the growth of the CPDM in Bamenda has been very fast especially after he took over the command of the party.

From barely 1,100 votes recorded for the CPDM in the 1992 elections, the number rose to only 3,250 in 2004. When he took over the section from former Government Delegate, Tadzong Abel Ndeh in April 2007, the CPDM for the very first time had some 8,150 votes in the 2007 parliamentary and council elections, recording an increase of more than 5,000 votes for the party in a single elections.

It is based on this that the Mezam I Section under Paul Atanga Nji moved to conquer fear in CPDM militants by providing them with T – shirts and asking them to move on foot to the congress hall and not in taxis to the Bamenda congress hall to advertise the CPDM party which for so long had been blackmailed by the SDF in Bamenda.

This paid off as in the 2011 presidential elections the CPDM won over 10,000 votes in the Mezam I CPDM Section. For this reason, Atanga noted the efforts to implant the party in the section.

According to him, instead of trying to conquer all the three subdivisions of Bamenda in one election, his party decided to concentrate on Bamenda I which has a smaller electorate and which could easily be convinced. He said it would have been of no use campaigning to get about 25,000 voters in three subdivisions without being able to win a single council.

So, the better alternative was to target about 4,000 voters in Bamenda I and win a council, which will be more political gain. He said in the next election the CPDM will target Bamenda III, and if successful, the Bamenda II council area will fall to the CPDM on its own.

In his reaction, Mezam I CPDM Section president and minister of Special Duties at the Presidency of the Republic,Paul Atanga Nji said he was elated that after their unfruitful adventures in the wilderness the decamping militants have now come to realize that the CPDM party which is gaining grounds in Bamenda has always delivered on its electoral promise.

Minister Atanga Nj Paul revealed that during the senatorial elections of 14 April 2013 he was instrumental in the victory of the CPDM given that he made several trips to Njinikom and successfully wooed some 17 SDF councilors to vote for the CPDM.