Cameroon’s Disgrace at the 2012 London Olympics.

London 2012 proved to be a thorough embarrassment for the Cameroon Olympic contingent, comprising few athletes and a traditionally larger assemblage of officials. Team Cameroon reaped what they sowed.

                                                By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai*

     The dismal performance of Cameroonian athletes in the just ended 2012 London Olympics should not surprise Cameroonians. First, it was the product of the unserious, shoddy and improvised preparation that has characterized sports in the country over the past few years. And second, it was yet another manifestation of the rapid degeneration of political, economic and social fabrics of the nation. There can be no short-cut to success; therefore, a complete break from the lackadaisical past, and a purposeful change of attitude towards global competitions should be more than just an urgent national imperative.

     There is hardly any aspect of governance in this country that cannot be faulted for malfeasance, corruption and incompetence. As the nation’s number one sportsman, President Paul Biya has shown impetuous indifference towards this descent into anarchy within the Cameroon sporting movement by not holding administrators in that sector accountable for their performance. In serious-minded countries, officials facing a similar disgraceful situation would have resigned honorably. In the absence of such voluntary actions, the government should sack them as appropriate.

     For 17 agonizing days, Cameroonians, at home and in the Diaspora, painfully waited for an Olympic medal to come their way. Alas! It did not happen. Those who hold that a goal without a plan is only a wish, make plenty of sense after all. Team Cameroon reaped what they sowed. By its disastrous flop in London, not only did our representatives disappoint Cameroonians, the country scored another mark in international notoriety when seven athletes; including the entire boxing team defected. The pedestrian and amateurish manner in which the Cameroon Olympic Committee handled the issue was a textbook failure of crisis management and damage control. We gave the world another golden opportunity to showcase our strong credentials as a banana republic through the negative branding. Quite predictably, the international media had a field day.

     London 2012 proved to be a thorough embarrassment for the 100-man Cameroonian delegation, complete with a traditionally larger assemblage of officials that boasted of bringing more laurels than any of the contingents in the past 12 previous participations, dating back to the country’s maiden Olympic representation at the 1964 Games in Tokyo, Japan. Cameroon’s best showing in London 2012 was a quarter-final defeat of Ali Annabel Laure in the Women’s 72 kg wrestling.

     Cameroon first participated at the Olympic Games in 1964, and has competed in every Olympic Games since then. The nation withdrew from the 1976 Summer Olympics after three days of competition, to join the broad African boycott in response to the participation of New Zealand, who still had sporting links with then apartheid South Africa. Cameroon has also participated in the Winter Olympic Games in 2002, with a single representative, Isaac Menyoli.

     Cameroon won its first Olympic medal at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico, where Joseph Bessala won silver in the men’s Boxing welter weight. It took an agonizing 16-year wait for Cameroon to win its second Olympic medal when Martin Ndongo-Ebanga won bronze in the men’s Boxing light weight at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, USA. The country was back to its lethargic and fruitless participation at the 1988 Games in Seoul, South Korea, where its record large contingent could not win any medal, but only made news with its excessive shopping so much that the plane chartered to convey it could not get off the ground until much of the excess luggage was wisely offloaded.

     There was no success at the 1992 Games in Barcelona, and the Atlanta 1996 Games. The country’s best-ever showing was at the Sydney 2000 Games, where the Geremi Njitap-inspired U-23 football team won gold, becoming only the second African country to do so after Nigeria in Atlanta 1996. In the 2008 in Beijing, the country rode on its lone gold medal in the women’s triple jump won by Francoise Mbango Etone who defended the medal she had won in Athens 2004.

The sum total of the country’s medals in 13 expeditions to the Olympic Games (the boycotted 1976 Games included) are three gold, one silver and one bronze (total 5 medals) won in only three events – Athletics (2), Boxing (2), Football (1); that is 1 medal per 3,942,258 people! American superstar, Michael Phelps, in three Olympic Games won a total of 22 medals (18 of them gold) in swimming, considered in Cameroon; dotted with oceans, beaches and rivers as an “inconsequential sports.”

     Sports nonetheless remain the greatest unifying factor in the country. Before Cameroon goes back to the proverbial drawing board, government should hold the relevant sports officials, including the Minister of Sports, accountable for the wastage of billions of tax-payers money. Why would the government spend so much money in the Olympic Games, after failing to prepare the athletes to be the best they can be on the big stage? Expending public funds on a project with no benefit to the people, besides the international disgrace and embarrassment was yet another clear example of the profligacy that has bloated the cost of governance and rendered the country’s democracy unproductive.

With sports particularly football, being the singular unifying factor that cuts across all Cameroonians, government should scrutinize those who, often dubiously find their way into high offices of sports administration. Wars nowadays are seldom fought on the battlefield between nations, but on the sporting arena. Therefore, it is no longer acceptable that the “spirit of the Olympic movement is to take part, and not necessarily to win.” Winning does not hurt. Instead, it lifts the spirit of the nation; because it takes an entire nation to win a gold medal. Cameroon should be no exception.

     Cameroon needs sweeping changes and a total revolution in sports administration, to be led by the president himself, on whose desk the buck must stop! There is no running away; school sporting events like FENASCO and the University Games are where the biggest success stories begin as proven by US athletes, most of whom are university students. And the time to begin is now, not two months before the next Olympic Games at Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Cameroonians did not deserve the colossal failure and embarrassment of London 2012. And it must never happen again. Never again!

 

*Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai is a public intellectual and graduate of Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government where he was Managing Editor of the Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy. A former Research Analyst for Central Africa with Freedom House, he is a consultant and lives in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Talk back at ekinneh@yahoo.com.