Amid AFCON Victories, Cameroon Struggles with a Civil War

It’s hard to say in which direc­tion the for­tunes of the Cameroon­ian nation are head­ing while it is host­ing the 2021 African Cup of Nations.

The pre­mier men’s soc­cer tour­na­ment trans­lates as Coupe d’Afrique des Nations (CAN) in French or African Cup of Nations in Eng­lish. AFCON is held under the ban­ner of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of African Foot­ball (CAF), head­quar­tered in Egypt. Bil­lion­aire South African entre­pre­neur Patrice Mot­sepe is CAF President.

The 2022 event which holds from Jan­u­ary 9 to Feb­ru­ary 6 was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled in 2021 but was post­poned because of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. The last time Cameroon host­ed the com­pe­ti­tion was in 1972.

In 1972, Cameroon was in its infan­cy, hav­ing obtained inde­pen­dence just a decade ear­li­er, sep­a­rate­ly from Great Britain on Octo­ber 1, 1961, as South­ern Cameroons, and from France on Jan­u­ary 1, 1960, as French Cameroon or La Republique du Cameroon. Through a ref­er­en­dum on May 20, 1972, the union of the Eng­lish-speak­ing South­ern Cameroons (West Cameroon) and French-speak­ing La Republique du Cameroon (East Cameroon) was made official. 

While Cameroon remained peace­ful for a while, much tin­ker­ing with its con­sti­tu­tion opened the doors to a cen­tral­ized admin­is­tra­tion based in Yaounde, it’s cap­i­tal city.

More than 50 after inde­pen­dence the form of the Cameroon state, as well as eth­no­lin­guis­tic and polit­i­cal alle­giances, are the sub­ject of heat­ed dis­putes, an issue experts believe foment­ed a civ­il war that has now claimed over 6000 lives and dis­placed thou­sands of its own citizens. 

The AFCON tour­na­ment is tak­ing place amid an ongo­ing insur­gency pit­ting sep­a­ratists seek­ing to break the country’s two Eng­lish-speak­ing or Anglo­phone regions away from the major­i­ty French-speak­ing nation of 26 mil­lion peo­ple. This was sup­posed to be a unique moment when the gov­ern­ment hoped to show­case its own strengths and capabilities. 

To an extent, the admin­is­tra­tion has shown the world what the coun­try is about it. Cameroon kicked off the event at the new Olem­be sta­di­um. With a lot of fan­fare, the event brought tears to many eyes after a pro­longed peri­od of insta­bil­i­ty. Under heavy secu­ri­ty, Pres­i­dent Paul Biya showed up. Cameroo­ni­ans, at home and abroad, talked about how beau­ti­ful their coun­try is. Yet, many said it has been marred by poor lead­er­ship. Oth­ers remained thank­ful to the cur­rent lead­er­ship for main­tain­ing the uni­ty of the country. 

Even while the sep­a­ratists scored their own vic­to­ries, through assas­si­na­tions and by caus­ing some chaos, thus far the event is con­sid­ered a suc­cess for the government.

Biya, 88, appears to be the ulti­mate win­ner of AFCON2021. Even while he is con­sid­ered unfit for the job because of his age and incom­pe­tence in deal­ing with the Anglo­phone cri­sis, his gov­ern­ment man­aged to bring FIFA, CAF, and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty on his side by hold­ing the event in the midst of conflict. 

This review from The New York Times tells the sto­ry of what hap­pened in Cameroon against the back­drop of trou­bling news in oth­er parts of the continent.

Cameroon, which still prides itself as “Africa in Minia­ture,” gained some pos­i­tive media cov­er­age fol­low­ing the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny and match­es. The host nation eas­i­ly beat Burk­i­na Faso 2 to 1 on Day 1. On Day 4, they beat Ethiopia 4 to 1. Cameroon qual­i­fied for the round of 16 after a 1 to 1 draw with Cape Verde on Jan­u­ary 17. 

As expect­ed cov­er­age of the event on the radio, satel­lite TV, online, and print chan­nels is intense. In the midst of the tour­na­ment pit­ting 24 top teams, the pen­du­lum of news cov­er­age quick­ly swung in the neg­a­tive direc­tion after insur­gents struct, cre­at­ing head­lines that quick­ly trav­eled around the globe. 

In a review of some of the top news sto­ries about what is going on vis-a-vis the host­ing nation, the sto­ry­line from Jan­u­ary 2 through Jan­u­ary 16 tells of a coun­try strug­gling to bal­ance its pride, pres­tige, nation­al­ism, with the deter­mi­na­tion to com­bat what the gov­ern­ment describes as ter­ror­ism and infringe­ment on its ter­ri­to­r­i­al integrity.

Mixed Reviews Char­ac­ter­ize Cov­er­age of AFCON in Cameroon

Jan­u­ary 2, 2022 — CNN

Africa Cup of Nations: Cameroon con­flict looms over tour­na­ment venue — CNN

7, 2022 — Inter­na­tion­al Cri­sis Group

Cameroon Needs an African Cup Cease­fire | Cri­sis Group

Jan­u­ary 8, 2022 — ESPN

Cameroon at a cross­roads as Africa Cup of Nations arrives … final­ly (espn.com)

Jan­u­ary 10, 2022 — CAF Online

A mul­ti­cul­tur­al dis­play for the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny in Cameroon  | CAFOnline.com

Jan­u­ary 10, 2022 — VOA News

Cameroon Says Africa Soc­cer Will Be Suc­cess­ful Despite Sep­a­ratist Threats (voanews.com)

Jan­u­ary 10, 2022 —DW News

AFCON: Africa’s soc­cer tour­na­ment gets off to a vibrant start | Africa | DW | 10.01.2022

Jan­u­ary 11, 2022 — The Conversation

Dra­ma, delays and domes­tic unrest: why host­ing Afcon is so impor­tant for Cameroon (theconversation.com)

Jan­u­ary 12, 2022 — Al Jazeera

At long last, AFCON kicks off | Foot­ball News | Al Jazeera

Jan­u­ary 13, 2022 — France 24

Assas­si­na­tion mars Cameroon’s foot­ball fies­ta, expos­es missed polit­i­cal goals (france24.com)

Decem­ber 15, 2021 — The Athletic

AFCON’s biggest threat isn’t COVID-19, it’s safe­ty amid a civ­il war – The Athletic

Jan­u­ary 16, 2022 — The Wash­ing­ton Post

AFCON in Cameroon: Sep­a­ratists use bul­lets and bombs in attempt to dis­rupt Africa Cup of Nations — The Wash­ing­ton Post