Cameroonians shouldn’t pressurise Lions during 2015 AFCON - Tambe

Jonathan Tambe, member of the FECAFOOT Normalisation Committee, has appealed to Cameroonians not to exert pressure on the Indomitable Lions during the 2015 African Cup of Nations.

According to him, Cameroonians should be able to accept defeat given that the youthful squad needs time to mature. Tambe was speaking in an exclusive interview granted The Post in Buea, days after the postponement of the FECAFOOT elections and the extension of the mandate of the Normalisation Committee.

He also reviewed some of the obnoxious provisions of the old FECAFOOT statutes and how it hampered the management of football in Cameroon.

Read on:

The Post: As a member of the FECAFOOT Normalisation Committee, what is your appraisal of the Committee’s work one year after it was installed?

I think the work the Committee has done, so far, is laudable because even the World Football Governing Body, FIFA, has rated the text the Committee brought out as the best in the world. Other countries have done that in the past, but, according to FIFA, Cameroon has produced the best text in the world, so far. There is no gainsaying that other countries are now trying to emulate Cameroon’s example.

Is that not the same text about which the Minister of Sports and Physical Education wrote to FIFA condemning for having obnoxious provisions that, if used for the November 29 elections into FECAFOOT, would plunge the country into chaos?

The Minister of Sports and Physical Education could only say what he said from his own perspective. But as those who govern football in the world, we reviewed this text with the consent of FIFA, all the amendments and corrections made were in accordance with FIFA and CAF rules. From the comparison with other countries, the Delegations from FIFA and CAF said that the FECAFOOT text was the best in the world. So, we can only say that we did the best we could with the consent of FIFA and CAF.

The Normalisation Committee endorsed the Secretary General of FECAFOOT to stand for the November 29 elections unopposed. Does the new FECAFOOT text encourage this? If yes, is this not rather stifling the democratic process in Cameroon?

The Normalisation Committee endorsed the candidacy of Tombi a Roko, no doubt, but that is not what the text says. If you go through the text, carefully, you will discover that there are several provisions that give room for any Cameroonian to vie for any position in FECAFOOT, but, unfortunately, Tombi a Roko was the only candidate who submitted a complete file as stipulated by the text. If there were any abnormalities in the text, I don’t think the General Assembly could have adopted it on August 23, 2014.

Members of the Assembly came and, after reading the text, everybody approved it and it was adopted. It didn’t end there; we equally went right down to the Regions and the Divisions and the text was adopted without complaint or hesitation, but a few days to the elections, some candidates said the text was biased. How could the text be biased when every step was followed and the candidates gave their consent for the elections to go on?

I think the candidates are trying to be funny because the text says, to be President of FECAFOOT, for instance, candidates must pay FCFA 2,000,000 as caution fee. At first, the Normalisation Committee decided that the amount should be FCFA 4 million to prevent every Tom and Dick to come into the process, but FIFA intervened and said the amount was too high. We reduced it to FCFA 2 million.

This was, at least, affordable to any person who wanted to be FECAFOOT President. But, unfortunately, some of the aspirants could not still afford the FCFA 2 million; some could not even get eight people to back them in their candidature out of the 76 members of the General Assembly who were to vote for the FECAFOOT President. Only Tombi was able to convince eight people to back his candidacy, while the rest failed.

Many aspirants of the FECAFOOT Presidency have interpreted the FCFA 2 million caution demanded by the Normalisation Committee as a ploy to frustrate their candidature, given the economy situation of the country?

I don’t think the FCFA 2 million was too much to ask, because, if the Committee had decided that all FECAFOOT Presidential aspirants should pay FCFA 100,000, you can imagine the number of people who could have come in to vie for the Presidency, a position which most people believe is very juicy.

So, we wanted a situation where people will, first of all, meet up with their financial commitments and then come in, because if a candidate is elected President, he or she will not be earning FCFA 2 million a month, think of the benefits and other advantages that will follow. I think all these will be more than FCFA 2 million. In my opinion, all aspirants should have struggled to raise the money and then come in for the elections.

The likes of Jules Nyonga, a national team coach could not pay FCFA 2 million; Robert Attah could not pay and a host of other candidates. The only two candidates who met up with their financial obligations were; Tombi and Joseph Antoine Bell. However, six candidates were not too bad for the elections.

Was the job of the Normalisation Committee limited to reviewing the FECAFOOT Statutes?

Not necessarily, in fact, we went to the media and educated the people on what the text says. We didn’t end at that, we sent copies of the text to the Regions, Divisions and even Subdivisions to candidates to read, identify abnormalities, make proposals and forward them to the Committee for corrections.

But nothing was done. We went to the various Divisions and Regions and the text was adopted. In terms of education and sensitisation, the Normalisation Committee did a lot of work; that is why FECAFOOT Presidential aspirants were able to submit their candidatures.

What did you make of the postponement of the FECAFOOT elections of November 29?

When the news broke out that the elections had been postponed by FIFA to February 28, members of the Normalisation Committee were disappointed but had to accept the decision, since it was coming from FIFA. The elections were suspended because the Minister of Sports had written to FIFA, requesting that the election should be postponed because he could not guarantee the security of the elections. FIFA then decided to carry forward the elections to give the Minister the opportunity to mobilise his security network. The postponement of the election will also help the FECAFOOT Presidential aspirants to complete their files.

Cameroonians are pointing accusing fingers at the Normalisation Committee for masterminding the postponement of the elections to enable some of its members to travel to Equatorial Guinea for the 2015 AFCONS, just like they did in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. What is your take on that?

Far from that; as a member of the Committee, I was quite ready to return to Buea. Members of the Committee knew that elections were going to take place on November 29 and the handing over ceremony to the newly elected bureau of FECAFOOT on December 2 and we quit. I had already arranged my luggage for Buea immediately after.

But when the postponement decision was communicated to us on the eve of the elections, we were all embarrassed but we had no option. We had to stay on and do the job which the State has assigned to us. The problem is not as if members of the Normalisation Committee wanted to remain there forever.

People like Professors Ngwafor and Minkoa Shy are already complaining that they have to attend to the needs of their students. It has not been an easy job, due to the numerous texts which we were instructed to look into. The texts were more than 18 or 20; not only Article Four as many people have been saying. We had to look into the statutes of FECAFOOT, its regulations and organisational structure.

We reviewed youths football programme, feminine football programme, veteran and cooperatives football programmes. We also looked into football both at the Divisional and Subdivisional levels, among other issues. FIFA saw that the work that was assigned to us was too much and could not be effectively done within eight months, that is why our mandate was extended and members of the Committee went to the World Cup.

It is the same scenario that if elections were conducted on November 29, it may have provoked some wrangling which may distract the national team from performing well at the 2015 AFCON; that is why elections will be conducted after the tournament.

Were there shortcomings in the former FECAFOOT statutes that hampered the effective management of football in Cameroon?

There were a lot of shortcomings. Certain provisions gave certain FECAFOOT officials too many privileges at the detriment of the others. That is why, before coming out with present statutes, the Normalisation Committee took the text of other countries like France, Britain, Brazil, Congo and others, read and compared them before coming out with the masterpiece of the new FECAFOOT statutes.

In fact, the text we had before had a lot of loopholes, but the present text is good for all Cameroonians because if tomorrow I want to also become the FECAFOOT President, I will have to follow all the steps prescribed by the text. I don’t know why people are complaining that the Normalisation Committee is arm-twisting the text to favour Tombi. I think the text we have produced is good for the State, FECAFOOT and Cameroonians as a whole.

Why has it taken the Normalisation Committee this long to normalise football in Cameroon when it took Ivory Coast, Senegal, Gabon, France and other countries just three months for their various football federations?

Every country has its specificities. Cameroon is Cameroon and Gabon is Gabon. So, what is obtainable in Gabon cannot be obtainable in Cameroon. Cameroon is a bilingual country with a different system from that of other countries. That is why we were trying to look for what is good for our people, football and country.

The Arbitration and Reconciliation Chambers of the National Olympic and Sports Committee led by Abdourama Hamadou is calling for Regional elections into FECAFOOT to be cancelled; that they were marred by irregularities…?

I think the Arbitration Committee is mainly doing its job. The Normalisation Committee is not threatened by such claims or allegations. Let us wait and see what comes out of it as a resolution, because the Arbitration and Reconciliation Chambers of the National Olympic and Sports Committee settles disputes between countries as far as football is concerned.

If the Committee thinks they were shortcomings in the Regional elections, then, there is no problem. We will abide by the rules of FIFA and do what they want us to do.

Was the Normalisation Committee satisfied with the outcome of Regional elections which were reportedly bloody in some Regions like the West and Littoral and in others characterised by intrigues and machinations like the Northwest and Southwest?

I was the President of the Electoral Commission in the Northwest Region and, to the best of my knowledge, no complaint came to me as far as the elections were concerned. I went there for the adoption of the text, it went through without skirmishes. But when I went there for the finally elections, on the eve of the elections, I was told that JB Ndeh was planning to withdraw his candidacy and that there was going to be a riot.

I informed the Governor and the SDO and demanded for security. On the final day of the elections, security was tightened, but to my greatest dismay, a Gendarmerie Officer approached me with a letter addressed to me. When I opened the letter, I saw “withdrawal of my candidature for the post of President of FECAFOOT for the Northwest Region.”

I read the letter to members of the General Assembly and the lone candidate who contested the elections was Christopher Kaba and he had 27 votes on 30. As far as the elections in the Northwest were concerned, I had no problems. In the West, Littoral, Centre and Southwest, I only heard and watched the news. But I think the independent Commission which was created to look into the FECAFOOT elections independently from the Normalisation Committee did a great a job.

What is the future of Cameroon football?

I think the future of Cameroon football is very promising, but I want to plead with Cameroonians not to put too much pressure on these young players because it is a new team the country is trying to build. Let’s give these guys three or four years for them to mature and become a great force to reckon with in the world.