Joe Dinga Pefok (Uncle Joe)
The Ahidjo Regime Gave Each Sport Discipline The Opportunity To Show Proof That It Deserved To Be Treated As A Major Sport. When Biya Became President, He Declared That There Is No Major Or Minor Sport. But The Biya Regime Has Since Adopted Football As The Only Major Sport For Its Interest. Cameroon Is To Host The NANBUDU World Championship In Early October, But Little Or Nothing Is Being Heard. Why?
Cameroon today has as many as 54 Sports Federations that are recognized by the Ministry of Sports and Physical Education, and thus by Government. But the 54 sports are not all the same. There are in fact major and minor sports in Cameroon, just as in other countries. There are popular and less popular sports.
There Sports Federations in Cameroon that many people do not even know that the sports are practiced in the country. There are some Sports Federations whose activities hold only in Yaounde and Douala, and more so they organize very few competitions. There are Sports Federations that are quite active, while there are some more dormant than active. There are sports federations that are only seen when there are opportunities for these federations to travel out of the country to participate at international competitions, and in most cases their performance out there is disastrous.
Also, there are Sport Federation that one only hears about them on the day of the Cameroon Cup Final, when champions of the different sport disciplines line up to receive their trophies from the hand of the President of the Republic, or his representative, as has become the tradition. It should be noted that some of these Sports Federations are in fact obliged or even compelled to organize some small competitions (Cup) to have their champions, that receive those trophies from the hands of the President of the Republic or his representative, if not, they will not organize anything.
Major Sports In Cameroon
There are a number of major sports in Cameroon, just like in many other countries across the world. This means that in reality, there are major and minor sports in each country. In Cameroon, the major sport disciplines include Football, Basketball, Athletics, Volleyball, Boxing, Handball, and Cycling, and to an extend Wrestling, Tennis, Nanbudo (judo), and Weightlifting.
In Cameroon, football is indisputably the leading sport among the major sports in the country, considering the number of fans it pulls, comparatively. Football is also the leading sport among major sports in several European countries and in South America. But in India and Pakistan for example, cricket is the number one sports. In the United States where football is known as soccer, football or soccer does not even feature among the first three or four major sports in the country. Rather, basketball, ruby (America football), lawn tennis, athletics, and even gulf, comes before football.
Each individual has a right to like the sport of his or her choice. In Cameroon, there are people whose favorite sport is swimming, cycling, beach soccer, lawn tennis, football, basketball, table tennis, athletics, boxing, handball, judo, weightlifting, volleyball, karate, cricket, horse racing, or wrestling, and so on. Also, there are people who like just one particular sport, while there are other people who are interested in more than one. Also, even though some people claim that football is like opium to Cameroonians, the truth is that there are Cameroonians that have no interest in football. They never attend football matches. They never even watch football on TV. They have their own sports that they like. No government or regime has the right to try to impose a particular sport on the people, as the Biya regime has been trying to do with football in Cameroon, because they use football for their politics.
The Role Of Government
The role of Government in a country as far as sports is concern, is supposed to be geared at promoting the different sport disciplines that are practiced by the population. The first objective of the State or Government in the promotion of sports is, to enable the population to practice sports as physical exercises to maintain good health, as well as to promote sports for entertainment, and as an instrument to promote friendship or solidarity between people, and so on. It is not for a government to discriminate in the support of the different sports legally practiced by the population, especially those considered as major sports in the country.
When it comes to international competitions, it is logical that the State or Government should give more financial assistance to serious Sports Federations or sports disciplines, that comparatively performs well at international competitions and bring honour to the country. But it not for the Government or a regime to try to impose any major sports on the population, or to use huge sums of State funds to pump into one major sport, because it uses it for its politics.
Fair Treatment Of Major Sports
Football has been a major sport in Cameroon since the colonial days. But though the Ahidjo regime recognized that fact, the regime also gave opportunities for other sport disciplines in the country with the potential to emerge as major sports, to do so. This was through t promotion or encouragement by the State.
When Biya who was a member of the Ahidjo regime came to power in 1982, he continued in that line for a while. Cameroonians that qualified to participate at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, for example, were properly taken care of by the State, to ensure a good preparation for the big international competition. In an interview that former Cameroonian boxer, Martin Ndongo Ebanga, who won a silver medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic granted CRTV Sports and Entertainment Channel, he disclosed that the team of Cameroonian boxers spent eight months in camp, four of which was outside the country, to prepare for the Los Angeles Olympics. The Government also hired an American boxing coach, to work with the Cameroonian boxing coach, to prepare the boxers for the Los Angeles Olympic.
Also, when Martin Ndongo Ebanga returned to the country from the Los Angeles Olympic in 1984 with the Silver Medal in boxing, he was received at the Unity Palace by the Head of State, Paul Biya, in the presence of the then Minister of Sports, Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya. The boxer, Ndongo Ebanga, was also given a permanent job at the National Social Insurance Fund.
How Things Have Changed
But the Biya regime along the line adopted football, especially as concerns the senior national football teams, as the only major sports in the country, because of the regime’s policy to use football, especially the victories of the national football teams, for politics. Since then, the other major sports in the country are in general treated so shabbily by the Biya regime, as the focus or interest of the regime is only on football. Huge amounts of State funds are pumped into football, especially the senior national football teams, while the other major sports are treated like orphans.
Come to think of it that unlike in 1984 and 1988 when Cameroonian sports men and women that qualified to participate in the Olympic Games spent eight and six months respectively in camps funded by the State to prepare for the big international competitions, the less than 10 Cameroonians sport men and women that qualified to participate at the last Olympic Games, which was the 2024 Paris Olympics, were abandoned to themselves by the government, to prepare for the games. This, even as President Biya was one of the foreign Heads of States that was invited by the French President to attend the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
NANBUDO World Championship
Cameroon is to host the 2026 NANBUDO World Championship in the first week of October, which is in a couple of days away. The NANBUDO (Judo) Federation headed by Prof Justin Diffo, University don, and Board Chair of Telecommunication Regulatory Board, formally presented the request to the President of the Republic last year, and he validated it. The Presidency thus gave the go ahead.
A couple of months ago, the NANBUDO Federation presented a modest budget of 600 million francs FCFA for the hosting of NANBUDO World Championship to the Government, precisely to the Ministry of Sports and Physical Education, as is the procedure. The ministry did not send the budget to the Presidency through the Prime Minister’s Office, as was expected. It is not clear whether it was the Presidency that told the Minister of Sports and Physical Education, not to send it. Instead, the Minister of Sports and Physical Education, Prof Narcise Mouelle Kombi, promised that the ministry would give the Federation a little over 100 million francs FCA (including taxes), which would be 85 million francs CFA in net amount, after taxes are reduced . By the end of the first week of this month of September, even that tiny amount had not yet been given by the Ministry of Sports to the NANBUDO Federation.
It is surprising, if not embarrassing, that though Cameroon will be hosting the NANBUDO World Championship in a couple of days, and that will bring in delegations from many countries across the world, little or nothing is being heard. This is because of Government’s lukewarm attitude, since it is not football. We saw the same thing when Cameroon hosted the Africa Athletic Championship. It was a shame. Yet, it is President Biya who publicly declared that there is no major or minor sport in Cameroon.
Cameroonians remember so well that when Cameroon had to host the Africa Cup of nations (AFCON) in early 2022, the Government pumped in for preparations, hundreds of billions of francs CFA, part of which, were allegedly and scandalously embezzled (Olembe Gate for example). Worst still, was the fact that a bulk of the money that the Government raised for Cameroon’s preparation to host AFCON, was raised through loans.
