From 23 August to 13 September 2020 the local section of the Social Democratic Front (SDF), a Cameroonian political party led by Chairman John Fru Ndi, organised for the third time a football holiday championship called "Ngoulemakong SDF Holiday Championship". The town of Ngoulemakong is a commune in Cameroon of about 20,000 inhabitants located in the department of Mvila, in the South Region. SDFCAMEROON.ORG had the privilege of asking 3 questions to President Félix Gildas Mbida Belinga.

SDFCAMEROON.ORG : Good Morning Mr. Felix Gildas MBIDA BELINGA, thank you for granting this interview to sdfcameroon.org. You are the President of the SDF Electoral District of Ngoulemakong. You are organizing from August 23 to September 13, 2020 the 3rd edition of the SDF Holiday Championship of Ngoulemakong. Could you briefly present this sporting activity? Are things going as planned after the first 10 days?

Félix Gildas Mbida Belinga (FGMB) : Hello Mr Oumarou, thank you for your interest in our championship. You forgot to mention that I am also a member of the National Executive Committee of the SDF. The SDf is doing very well in Ngoulemakong despite the intimidation of the regime in place.

I can tell you that the championship is going well at the moment. I can tell you that before organizing this championship, we made sure that we are in compliance with the legal regulations. Why ? Because we were able to obtain an authorization from the delegate of physical and sports activities of our district, we obtained a receipt of declaration of activities signed by the administrative authority which is the sous-préfet. So we are fully complying with the legal rules.

What are our motivations? Our motivations are to attract all the young people from the region to join the SDF, to set up committees in the 58 villages that constitute our district. In order to do this, we have to be present on the ground, we have to organize events that can attract young people; I must tell you here that doing politics in the opposition is very complicated...Young people are intimidated, if you visit the field you don't see young people, but when you organize an event that can attract them, you see them coming. Right now more than 500 young people from all the villages are gathered together to see, watch the different matches are on the fields. So here are some of our motivations.

The Executive Committee of the Electoral District has taken all the necessary measures to ensure the total success of this important event. We have created security committees or, as I can call them, security agents who are there everywhere, there are ball boys, there are tough guys, because you know, even if you have the authorization of the Sous-Prefet, there are people who can come and make trouble, so we have taken measures to avoid any disorder in our organization, and we are at the 3rd edition, we have never had any incidents, we have never had any disturbance, and already now we are preparing the 4th edition.

SDFCAMEROON.ORG: Cameroonians are passionate about sports and particularly soccer. How are these championships welcomed by the population, what is their scope in the electoral district of Ngoulamakong?

FGMB: the population welcomes these championships with enthusiasm. Why is this? Because the Executive Committee signs a contract with the population and the teams. We sign a contract, we make commitments; we propose to the teams and the teams come. What does that mean? We can say for example that the first team will have 100 000 FCFA, a trophy, a medal and a ball. We respect that, and when you respect that, the next edition is more grandiose than the previous one. So it is a commitment that the Executive Committee signs with the population, which is why by respecting our commitments the population is proud of an opposition party that honors its word. That is why you will see more than 500 young people have come this year, because we promise and we keep our promises.

People are waiting for the political parties, even the opposition party, CPDM, see if we will respect the commitments we have signed. The first edition was not grandiose, the second was more grandiose than the first and today the third is the apotheosis. What will the fourth edition be like? And in each edition we have an innovation and improvements, that's why the population is proud of us.

The modalities of the championship are known in advance, the players who participate know beyond what their bonuses are and what they will win; it's no longer up to us to make the advertisement, but we let the population and the players make our advertisement, as it is done nowadays, because if you arrive in Ngoulemakong everyone will tell you about our championship and will tell you that these people keep their commitments. So it's the people who will advertise for the next edition: we were receiving questions like 'are you not going to organize the Ngoulemakong SDF Holiday Championship anymore? ”

I can tell you Mr. Oumarou that the Ngoulemakong SDF Holiday Championship is currently the best championship of Ngoulemakong, since there is not another championship that has been played for 3 years in our district. The Ngoulemakong SDF Holiday Championship will even extend to other districts in the years to come; currently it is actually played in two districts, that of Ngoulemakong and that of Akoeman which is in the central region and which takes part with 8 teams, so it is a championship which extends over two regions: the Center and the South. At this moment it is a team of Akoeman which faces a team of Ngoulemakong. So you see a way of working, of implanting our party in the Central and South region.

SDFCAMEROUN.ORG: Last question, Mr. President, how is the SDF's situation in the South Region? How do the people see the fact that the SDF is moving out of the strictly political field to carry out activities in the social, sports and cultural sectors?

FGMB: it's a very good question that gets straight to my heart. The SDF has great difficulty in implanting itself in the South Region. You know, politics in the South Region is not at all easy... When you are in the opposition the local authorities will intimidate you, the authorities and as they are sometimes called the external elites will intimidate you; when a leader of the opposition, I am talking about the opposition in general, is elected leader of a political party, he has to be dynamic, courageous, because if you are not courageous you cannot work in opposition, especially for the SDF. The SDF scares the elites of the South, and it is these elites, ministers, who call the local authorities and intimidate the local authorities, such as the sub-prefect and his delegation, to threaten you. For this reason, I congratulate the Comrades and the members of the Executive Committee of the Ngoulemakong constituency for which I am in charge, for their dynamism, courage, self-sacrifice and for the work on the ground, because we are doing an enormous amount of work on the ground, We are not afraid of anything... For a political party to establish itself in the South you need "friends", if you are a civil servant they will do everything to intimidate you, they will tell you that you will lose your job, if you are a senior official in the administration they will do everything they can to kidnap you, there are many who have been victims of this. For this reason there is not so much opposition in general and the SDF in particular in the South.

At that time, the SDF is the most established opposition party in the South; it has 29 arrondissements, and of these 29 the SDF must be represented in 10 arrondissements, and therefore in the other 19 arrondissements the party is not established, and this is mainly due to the fear of repression by the administration.

The population of the South lives in fear. I repeat: the population of the South lives in fear. I am making field visits; this weekend I was in Kribi to mobilize some SDF troops to prepare for future events. So for me, I am committed to working in the field with my modest means and by asking for means from the party leaders who can support me to implant the SDF in the Southern region; despite the fact that I am not the regional president, my NEC member's cap allows me to work in the whole Southern region and all of Cameroon, I was in Mbouda, Bawang, in the high plateaux at the invitation of their coordinators because of my experience in the field. This is why I need and I am looking for ways to work in the field and to implement the SDF in the whole Southern region.

I plan to make another visit to the Ntem Valley to see what the difficulties are, to mobilize and restructure the party on this side.

So the South has enormous difficulties to work, in fact it is the whole population that is concerned, because they live in fear; when I speak of the 10 districts where the SDF is represented, even if it is not strongly represented as in Ngoulemakong, everywhere you will hear about SDF Ngoulemakong, it is because we have worked on the ground and we have killed fear, because without killing fear you cannot defeat the CPDM.

The local elites of the CPDM spend their time intimidating the population, they defame the SDF as an anglophone party and they say everywhere in the villages that everyone should vote Biya or else Cameroon will be in blood and fire or else their children will lose their jobs, etc.

I explained to the population that all this is not true, it is Mr. Biya himself who accepted the introduction of multipartyism and the local CPDM elites are only deceiving them; Paul Biya will never come to Ngoulemakong to discuss the post of Mayor, the Ngoulemakong Mayor's office will always be run by ourselves, son of Ngoulemakong. Mr Fru Ndi will never come to Ngoulemakong to dispute a local post or a land, if he comes it will be to talk and listen to the people's grievances.

During the last elections, when I was a candidate, I had to explain that if the SDF wins, it is not Mr. Fru Ndi who will become Mayor here, it is me who is the candidate and if we win the municipality will be run by ourselves.

It is false to say that the SDF is an anglophone party, it is a national party like the CPDM; moreover the CPDM is present in Bamenda, the CPDM has run local municipalities and has senators in the North-West, so why accuse the SDF of being an anglophone party?

They are lying when they say that the CPDM is a party from the South as opposed to the SDF which is an anglophone party. No! the SDF is a national party and in Cameroon the law says that everyone is free everywhere to join the party of their choice and each party can spread throughout the national territory. I loved the SDF in the same way that some of them had been in the CPDM before leaving and returning to the SDF, I am not anglophone but I am a member of the National Executive Committee of the SDF.

So these are some of the aspects of our political work in the Southern region where we have had to make huge efforts to help the people here to overcome fears and intimidation. There is a constant need to explain and get down to the field because people are constantly being intimidated by the local elites affiliated with the CPDM.

SDFCAMEROON.ORG : Thank you, Mr. Félix Gildas Mbida Belinga for your time.

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