Bless zoshe
Buea, Cameroon.
For the first time in the history of the Cameroon Athletic Federation, the National President has emerged from West of the Mungo.
Emmanuel Motomby Mbome hitherto, president of the Southwest Regional League of Athletics, was voted during a hotly contested election on Saturday March 16, in Yaounde.
Of the 101 member electorate, the lone Anglophone aspirant won 38 votes, while his runner up, former president of the federation, Ange Sama, got 27 votes. In third place was
Motomby Mbome
Police Commissioner Moise Evina, with 20 votes. Amougou Onana and Marie Mesomo were ranked 4th and 5th, securing 14 and 2 votes respectively.
Meantime, Motomby’s predecessor, Jacques Sebastien Mbous was barred from the contest by the Minister if Sports and Physical Education, Adoum Garoua, for failing to account for funds dispatched to the federation for the organization of the Race of Hope. Mbous was banned along with three other federation presidents.
Reacting to his triumph at the end of Saturday’s election, Motomby said he ‘took the bull by the horns because South westerners and local officials have always been grossly sidelined, in the organization of the Mt Cameroon race of Hope’.
“Now that it has finally come to us, my appeal is that everyone should put hands on deck, so that we can organize a better race as from 2014, and work for the betterment of the situation of athletes in Cameroon. Our athletes have not been performing well especially in international competitions. Consequently, I and my team will go to work immediately. We shall go to the hinterlands, touch all the ten regions of the country, to fish out talents, and I promise you, we shall surely bring medals to Cameroon,” he said.
Race of Hope 2014, Motomby's Litmus Test
On his road map, the new president admitted that he had just been voted in, and the road map would be drawn collectively, with input from other stakeholders.
“If I do it alone and it fails, fingers will point at Motomby, but if we do it together, we will put our ideas together for the best,” he added.
Motomby futher declared that he had assured Minister Adoum Garoua and the President of the Olympic Committee, Kalkaba Malboum that ‘the house promised seven-time female champion and Queen of the Mountain, Sarah Lyiengu Etonge, must be habitable before the 2014 race’. The new president and his team have a four-year mandate.
