The picture was of Mola, mascot of the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon), wearing a bullet-proof vest and sandwiched by a sea of heavily armed forces as it toured the conflict-rife town of Bamenda in northwestern Cameroon.
The responses to the jolting viral image from those living through that hellish reality should have been the focal point in discussions about the upcoming tournament.
“Our government cares more about a mascot than us.”
“Who really has time for football given the death, destruction, and misery our people face?”
“Mola means brother, friend, elder, uncle… a friendly term. What is happening here in Cameroon is hostile. It is war.”
Amid the self-interest of the European Club Association and its disrespect towards Afcon, you may have missed the crucial headline: the host country has been embroiled in a civil war since September 2017.
Innocent lives – like five-year-old Caro Louise Ndialle and eight-year-old Brandy Tataw – have been lost as separatists from English-speaking areas of Cameroon destructively fight against marginalisation by the French majority under President Paul Biya’s leadership. This fact seems to have drowned among the flood of articles debating how Liverpool could cope without Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane, or if Chelsea are capable of sustaining a title challenge sans Edouard Mendy.
The self-serving attempts to tank Afcon and the whining about its effects on Fantasy Premier League teams has overshadowed separatists violently enforcing a boycott on children’s education since 2017, with armed gunmen attacking a school on 24 October last year, killing seven pupils and injuring 13.
All this in the name of independence for the anglophone southwest and northwest regions, named Ambazonia.
This story is from the January 06, 2022 edition of The Independent.
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This story is from the January 06, 2022 edition of The Independent.
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