THIS SONG IS NOT OVER!

Rigobert Song is neither too old, unfit, nor technically incapable to continue playing his central role within the ranks of the Indomitable Lions, captain or none. Every recent national team coach I have spoken to on this subject has been categorical on the view that in player performance, age is just some figures. Action speaks. Most of them have said Song remains the piston at the defence.

And it is not like Song is even so old. Officially, he is 33. That seems to be his real age. Beyond the generalized doubts that often dispute players’ ages, I have met disinterested persons who said they knew Song as a college boy here in Yaounde . Without being too categorical, they can admit that he is actually within that age-range.

And if the boisterous defenceman with a lion heart and natural aura of leadership were really 33 as I am convinced he is, it is wholly unkind of us to be jeering him out of the team he has given so much for. We blame all the woes of the national team on him and his click and their “age”.

True, it took a rare lame run by Song for Egypt to score the lone goal that cheated us of the 2008 Cup of Nations title. Rare. And so, he is too old to continue? Interestingly, some of us say Eto’o is old too. Because we often speak in chorus even without mastering the song, since we often follow the bandwagon with knowing which direction it is heading to, we join protestations against their click (984) but mistake it with unrelated questions about age: Song, 33, old; Njitap, 30, old; even Eto’o, just 28, old too!

As if age has ever really been an issue in the fortunes of our national team. Down memory lane, we have seen men about that age or older defend our national colours without raising eyebrows. Tokoto Jean Pierre starred for us at the 1982 World Cup, aged 34. Kunde Emmanuel, also former national team captain and a defence monument like Song played his last World Cup in 1990 aged 34. Even leave out the legendary Roger Milla who did wonders for us in 1990 aged 38!

Now, if you wanted to raise the argument that most of them played at an epoch when the game was not as fast-paced and highly technical as now, take the sluggish Patrick Mboma. He was recalled for service in the 2004 Cup of Nations, aged 34, and didn’t he score great goals for us?

At the awards ceremony for European club top players, UEFA president Michel Platini presented a special award to Paulo Maldini, long-serving Italian defenceman who only retired from the game last year, past 40. OK, agreed that he only continued playing club football long after quitting the national team. But check again: when Maldini, also former captain of the Italian national team, played the World Cup for the last time in 2002, he was aged 34.

Yet another Italian defencemen, the legendary Franco Baresi, played his last World Cup in 1994 aged…34. Something about the age 34 with monumental defencemen? (Kunde, Maldini, Baresi…).

Why not Rigobert Song? He will be 34 next year (2010) when he expects to play his last World Cup for Cameroon in South Africa . The committed fellow has only said he wants to finish the job with his troops. But a certain mob action by some fans is trying to jeer him out prematurely. That is making him sound in several press interviews as even begging to be given a chance.

Captain or not, Song remains team leader. Even new captain, Eto’o knows that. It was Marcel Desailly who aptly drew the line between captain and leader. Ever before he took the captain band for France, when Laurent Blanc was still captain, Desailly saw himself as the leader. Song might have cumulated captain and leader for ten years, but the captain band now gone to Eto’o, he remains the leader.

Elsewhere, reasonable people sing their heroes. Here we frustrate ours and send them to their early graves. If only Song could be allowed to enjoy the pleasure of playing his last World Cup at that magical age - 34.

First published in my sport magazine, "This is SPORT! This is FOOTBALL!" ahead of Cameroon's September 5, first leg game with Gabon in Libreville just after Rigobert Song lost the captain band to Samuel Eto'o and at the time he was considered by many to be on his way out of the national team, having also lost his stopper position to the younger, Sebastien Bassong in Cameroon's friendly with Austria that preceded the Cameroon-Gabon World Cup/AFCON qualifier.

On the bench at the start of the match in Libreville, Song smarted on to the pitch after Bassong suffered an injury and his performance was without reproach. He has not been benched since then, proving to fans at the Yaounde stadium on two occasions - Cameroon-Gabon (September 9) and Cameroon-Togo (October 10) - just what I'd said in this commentary.

How and why Musonge sidelined Inoni at Limbe CPDM rally*

Peter Mafany Musonge believes he is the new political leader and patriarch of Fako Division and wanted the fact acknowleged and established, so he crafted a gathering of all five Fako CPDM sections on 26 September in Limbe.

Musonge, former prime minister, now grand chancellor of National Orders, invited other political heavyweights of his generation – among them former archrivals John Ebong Ngole and Peter Agbor Tabi – including his most potential rival for Fako leadership, fellow ex-prime minister, Ephraim Inoni. Musonge apparently wanted to show that even in the presence of Inoni, Musonge is king.

That “Extraordinary Joint Section Conference of CPDM, Fako” was thus a “corronation ceremony” for Musonge as political godfather of Fako Division.

Every act of the Limbe show had the strappings of a Musonge corronation. Speaker after speaker gave him credit for masterminding the event. Although he holds no local party position, Musonge was initiator and chairman of the organizing committee.

“This conference was planned at the impulse of our elder brother and statesman, the Right Honourable PM Musonge,” said Andrew Monjimba Motanga, Fako I CPDM section president, who spoke on behalf of all five section presidents.

Yet, had no one sung his praise, Musonge was set to blow his own trumpet. He opened his scripted speech by reminding all that he – and no one else – was at the origin of the grandiose event. “The idea of this extraordinary joint sections conference was hatched […] at a meeting called by your humble servant,” Musonge boasted.

In enumerating who else were involved in organizing the show, Musonge gave the public to tacitly understand that Ephraim Inoni was not one of them. He went on to avoid mentioning Inoni even in acknowledging personalities who honoured the event. Neither was there any provision on the programme for Inoni to speak, even if only as a local elite, and throughout the show, he looked like a stranger in his own homeland.

Another potential Musonge rival, the very eloquent Henry Njalla Quan, former Limbe government delegate and Musonge’s successor as CDC general manager, might have shown some non-chalance in the face of that “cold war”, by quitting his seat in the honours tribune to join his orchestra across the street at the Limbe marchpast venue, in performing a song that lavished praises on both Musonge and Inoni as worthy sons of Fako.

Political watchers believe Musonge was just making smart to hoist his flag of conquest over territory he knows Inoni equally lays claims to. And the timing could not have been better calculated.

Dorothy Limunga Njeuma, erstwhile Fako leader if only in her capacity as the lone CPDM Politbureau member from the division, is now out of the way. She officially lost her party political status with her resignation from the party, following her appointment last year into ELECAM.

If Fako must retain Njeuma’s sit in any future reorganisation of that high organ of the CPDM, the two former PMs would be seriously considered. And there is the Senate expected to be set up soon, which would largely be the assembly of former statesmen. If nothing else, a statement by Laurent Charles Etoundi Ngoa, representing the CPDM scribe, gave room for speculation over what big trophy would next come to Fako and to whom. Said he: “Fako has received and Fako will receive again.”

If Musonge’s longstanding intentions to occupy the territory were held at bay while Inoni was in power until 30 June, his restraint clearly lasted only until then. There were words from Musonge himself to prove that. He said the Limbe CPDM rally “was hatched only a month ago, precisely on 26 August 2009.”

Without having to check on a calendar, that was less than two months after Inoni was replaced as prime minister and only one month after he effectively returned home and announced he was still available for service. That implied Inoni’s continued involvement in active politics and – he might have hoped – as a local political godfather.

Although Musonge has not quite been seen in overt political gesticulations even as prime minister, it now looks like Fako is beginning to get too small for the two retired PMs. Both men have not been particular fond of each other as politicians though, so Musonge’s stage-managed show on 26 September appears to have been a way of denying Inoni soft landing in Fako after he was booted out of the Star Building on 30 June.

This analytic report was first published in Standard Tribune N° 054 of 05 October 2009 (page 1) as my Guest Contribution under the title: CPDM: Musonge, Inoni in ‘coldwar’ over Fako

Musonge’s political calculation

Timing is crucial in political calcualtions like in everything strategic. Musonge certainly knows that. He has taken about the most outgoing move in his political career with the rally in Limbe grouping all five CPDM sections in Fako.

Besides capitalising on Dorothy Njeuma’s departure from the party political arena, Musonge may have banked on certain incapacities of the people most likely to stand in his way at this present time.

Co-patriarch Ephraim Inoni, who by right and acquired status should also be postulating as a Fako political godfather is gravely handicapped to put up a political fight at this time when grapevine holds, he has the sword of Damocles dangling over his head in relation to looming corruption suspicions.

Besides, Musonge remains confident that he, not Inoni, can be regarded as a local godfather any time, political gesticulations or none. As Churchill Ewumbue Monono put it in a 1996 write-up sizing up Biya’s likely pick for PM from the South West ahead of Musonge’s appointment in September same year, Musonge seems to have done more to groom the young Fako elite than Inoni, though the latter spent longer years within government circles. Even when Inoni became PM, Fako boys felt his Kupe-Muanenguba wife led him away to care more for her native division. That may not be entirely true.

His local rival aside, Musonge brought along his former arch-rivals, Peter Agbor Tabi and John Ebong Ngole. These should have been the most unlikely two to be seen at a Musonge event. Ebong’s descent into everlasting (?) hell and Tabi’s 12 years in the political wilderness; both men owe them to Musonge. It is understood they were Musonge’s first political casualties. He axed them out of the government in 1997 at his very first opportunity to be consulted by Biya for a cabinet change. Grapevine had been awash with talk that both rivals plus Inoni, thought Musonge was only their caretaker PM when he was first appointed in 1996. He stayed on eight years, three months!

So in Musonge’s calculation, inviting Ebong and Tabi might have been a show of reconciliation or actual reconciliation at a time little remained to divide them. For whatever aspirations each of them nurses now, their paths can only be parallel; they may not clash. An ex-PM may now only aspire for the Senate. Coming from separate constituencies, one’s gain cannot be the other’s undoing. Securing a Senate seat is one thing, holding an influential position therein like speaker, is quite another. So, Musonge may thus be paving his way to the next big thing, assured his peers would stand by him.

If Musonge is not counting on their understanding and forgiving heart, he might be playing on the reality that, now back into government after 12 years in the school of verbal restraint and self-examination, Agbor Tabi, the more militant of the two Musonge victims, should be in no mood to engage in another fight lest he repeats his errors of the past and compromise his chances for his own next big thing. He would need the goodwill of his peers and possible detractors if he must realize his life dream.

There cannot be any denying that Musonge’s mailing list for the Limbe event on 26 September was targetted. It was an oldtimers club. As a formality, sitting ministers may have been invited, just like the sitting prime minister, Philemon Yang, who was only represented, yet Musonge was visibly contented that in the absence of them all, he had a chance to show the world he could stretch a hand at his former arch-rivals and show his local rival that while those who live in a glass house ought to avoid throwing stones, those sure they have no glasses to bother about can go about throwing their stones to mark out captured territory.

This article was first published in Standard Tribune N° 054 of 05 October 2009 (page 11) in my new column STATE OF THE NATION