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.

Paul Biya’s Health: A Question of National Interest

23 sitting Presidents from 20 African countries have died in office. Of this number, 13 were rumored critically ill and undergoing treatment while in power. Biya’s 79 years is far on the left side of the average age of African Presidents which is 63; that’s pension time, or nearing it, in most countries, but the President is still hanging on.

                                        By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai*

     The death of three incumbent African Presidents in the last three months - Malawi’s Bingu wa Mutharika, Ghana’s John Atta Mills, and Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi has reignited the debate over Paul Biya’s health. As the number of ailing African Presidents increases, concealing the health status of the octogenarian can no longer be said to be in the public interest. The secrecy around the President’s health, which for long, have been the currency in official circles in this country has had its day and should give way to transparency. Cameroonians need know whether or not their President is healthy enough to live up to the exalting responsibilities of his high office.

      Malawi’s Mutharika, Ghana’s Atta Mills and Ethiopia’s Zenawi all died in office but their entourages elaborately concealed the seriousness of their ailments. In Mutharika’s case, ministers insisted he was alive. Both Zenawi and Mills had to seek medical treatment overseas because of deficiencies in their local healthcare services. Earlier in 2012, Guinea-Bissau’s President Malam Bacai Sanhá died in office after a protracted illness.

      Zenawi’s death added Ethiopia to the growing list of African countries that have lost a sitting President. So far, the list comprises 20 countries: Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Comoros, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria and Zambia. Gabon, (Leon Mba & Omar Bongo) Guinea (Sekou Toure & Lasana Conte) and Nigeria (Sani Abacha & Yar’Adua) have each lost two sitting presidents, bringing the total number of leaders who have died in office to 23.

      The average age of these leaders at their death was 63. Côte d'Ivoire’s Félix Houphouet-Boigny (88), Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta (84) and Malawi’s Mutharika (78) were among the oldest, while Algeria’s Boumedienne (45) was one of the youngest. Of the presidents who died in office, 13 were rumored ill and undergoing treatment while in power. Presently, there are eight African presidents (Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Malawi, Nigeria, Togo and Zambia) who are in power directly or indirectly as a result of a sitting president’s passing.

      Since 2008, 13 Presidents worldwide have died in office but 10 of those have been in Africa. Indeed, four African Presidents have died in office in 2012 alone. For 54 states, this amounts to a presidential mortality rate of 18%. Contrast with other continents, where in the same period, there was just one presidential fatality from Asia (Kim Jong Il from North Korea), Europe (Poland’s Lech Kaczyński, from a plane crash), and North America (David Thomson of Barbados, from cancer). South American leaders have all managed to stay alive. Same for Australasia.

      President Ahmadou Ahidjo is the only African president to have resigned from power due to ill health, in 1982, after ruling for 22 years. Several ailing African leaders watching news of Zenawi’s death are wondering who among them is next. They include Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika (75); Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe (88); Eritrea’s Isaias Afewerki (66) and Biya.

      Born February 13, 1933, Biya is 79 years old and counting. His health has been the subject of much speculation, ever since reports emerged prematurely announcing his death at the Clinique Generale-Beaulieu in East Geneva in November 2008. The pandemonium that followed is evidence, if any was needed, that Biya’s health is a question of public interest. Returning home after the rumors of his death, Biya touted his detractors that they would have to wait 20 years to celebrate his death. The President’s remarks gave him away either as playing to the gallery on a serious issue of State, or that he did not thoroughly consider the implications of his statements – implications necessarily arising from the ambiguity and uncertainty surrounding presidential succession in the country.

      The 1996 constitution (as amended) states that in case of vacancy or incapacitation, the President of the Senate takes over. But over 16 years after the constitution was passed, the Senate and other institutions like the Constitutional Court as provided in the constitution are yet to be created. Curiously, the government, out of political expediency has improvised by allowing the Administrative Bench of the Supreme Court to sit-in for the Constitutional Council. This, in point of fact and law is unconstitutional and sets a dangerous precedence! The inability of the government to remediate national institutions according to the supreme law of the land simply boggles the mind. Within this context, were Biya to die abruptly, there are plenty of incentives for someone, probably a soldier to seize power, provoking conflict, instability and even civil war.

      Biya’s 79 years is far on the left side of the average age of African Presidents which is 63; that’s pension time, or nearing it, in most countries. Put in context, the European equivalent is just 55; which is also the average age of American presidents at the time of their inauguration. Barack Obama is 50. Britain’s David Cameron is 45. The demand for health disclosure is serious enough that in the USA, presidential candidates are obliged to disclose their health reports before they can run for office.

      Regrettably, the quest for credible information about Biya’s health is taboo. Veteran Le Messager journalist, Pius Njawe (RIP) was jailed simply for insinuating that Biya might have suffered a malaise during the 1997 Cameroon cup finals. These speculations intensified after Biya; for the first time in 26 years as president skipped the 2008 challenge cup finals which was presided at by then Prime Minister Ephraim Inoni.

     Amid repeated media reports that Biya is suffering from prostrate cancer, keen observers could determine the president is showing more wear and tear mostly in the form of wrinkles; the declining swagger of his gait; the alleged uncontrollable flatulence and protracted anal blasts and the deterioration in his husky voice as exhibited in his last two official functions – laying of foundation stones at Mballam and Lom Pangar. The subterfuge amongst the President’s men is to insist all is fine even when Biya can barely walk.

      No one has confirmed what’s ailing the President and, in the absence of credible information, speculation has dominated the headlines. Presently, the nation is awash with rumors that the President’s wife, Chantal has deserted him. It hardly matters if the rumors are true or not; official silence implies she has. No smoke without fire. Biya now cuts the picture of an isolated president, frail, distraught, distracted, completely out of touch; indeed, a character to be pitied.

 

     Opinion is however unanimous that Biya is tired and has dropped the ball; the regime is fragile in ways it has not been before, plagued by a lack of vision, unprecedented levels of corruption and rumblings within the military rank and file. With no clearly defined constitutional transition process, the lack of transparency on Biya’s health creates a dangerous uncertainty. Better communication over what Biya is suffering from, what the prognosis is and perhaps some comment from the President himself would go a long way to ending all these speculations.

 

*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, USA. Talk back at ekinneh@yahoo.com.