It has been a challenging adventure for the representatives of the North West Region at the 8th edition of the National Games of Cameroon, better known by its French language acronym DIXIADES 2024.
The competition is said to be moving on smoothly since the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Chief Dr Joseph Dion Ngute, gave the kickoff on behalf of the President of the Republic, Paul Biya on December 12. This was at the courtyard of the Yaounde City Council.
The competition brings together delegations of young athletes from the 10 regions of Cameroon for 10 days of intense and exciting sporting activities in 10 disciplines. However, the fiesta has not been exciting for team North West.
In a telegram to the President of the North West Olympic and Sports Committee, the Secretary General of the institution and head of the North West delegation to the games, Emmanuel Yibei Tubuo, lamented that the team is facing challenges.
Photo by Hilltop Voices
In the letter leaked on the social media on Tuesday, Tubuo reported three serious health cases in the team. He said a female volleyball player fell during a match and was rushed to the University Teaching Hospital (CHU) Yaounde where she was unconscious for four hours. Another female handball player, he stated, sustained a “serious sprain on her knee”.
A third girl; a Basketball player, Tubuo wrote, fell just before supper the previous day “due to stress, fatigue and hunger”. She was also rushed to the hospital and responded to treatment, the head of the North West delegation to the games said. The good news, he nonetheless noted is that, “they are all coming along,” Tubuo said in the letter.
Poor treatment, elite abandonment
The head of the North West delegation to the DIXIADES 2024 games decried poor treatment by the organisers, the National Olympics and Sports Committee. He said what the Committee gives them is very little to sustain the team and more so, comes late.
In the letter to his boss, Tubuo also said the team feels abandoned by North West elite in the nation’s capital. He said, they have not had any other support apart from a FCFA 500,000 which the president offered the team.
“[There is] no one to support us, to encourage us to motivate…No elite,” the Secretary General of the North West Sports and Olympics Committee wrote.
“The first aid box is already empty, how do we cope with injuries or how do we go to the hospital again if need arises,” the head of the North West delegation to the games rhetorically asked.
He added that the team has other needs like “water, transportation to games and events and food” and above all motivation which is highly needed in sports.
“Please sir do something before we get a bigger problem here. Please sir,” the Secretary General pleaded with his boss.
Despite the sorry story of their participation, the North West team has won 13 medals in the first week of the competition. In the updates provided to his boss, Tubuo said team North West had won four gold medals, three silver and six bronze as at the time of the update.
At the time of this report, we learnt elite of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) party from North West had heard the cry of the team and opened a fund drive to that effect which ends today.
This report was first published in NewsWatch newspaper No 194 of Thursday, December 19, 2024.
