Five Years of Unity and Sports: Edwin Eselem Reflects on Wotutu-Ewongo Tournament’s Impact

By Boris Esono Nwenfor

BUEA, Cameroon – What began as a humble community football event in a conflict-ravaged village, has now grown into an inspiration of hope and a symbol of resilience. In a heartfelt one-on-one with Pan African Visions, Edwin Eselem, promoter of the Wotutu-Ewongo Interquarter Football Tournament, reflects on the journey from trauma to triumph through the power of grassroots sports. Now celebrating five impactful years, the tournament has not only fostered unity but breathed new life into a once-deserted community.

What started as a simple football tournament has since evolved into a symbol of social rebirth. "I go around and people ask me, 'Are you still in Wotutu?'" Edwin says with a laugh. "Yes, I am. My mother lives here, and my roots are here. That's why this initiative means everything."

Community leaders, civil society, business elites, and traditional rulers have all rallied around the tournament. The backing has grown, with sponsors like Biaka Group, Pan African Visions, Betatinz, Vista Print, and Galax offering support. “People see value in it,” Edwin says. “They see hope.”

What makes this year different? “People are starting to see that sports can do more than entertain,” Edwin notes. “It can preach peace. It can build communities.”

Edwin, take us back to the beginning—what inspired the creation of the Wotutu-Ewongo Interquarter Tournament?

Edwin Eselem: Thank you very much Boris and Pan-African Visions magazine for always supporting grassroots initiatives in Cameroon including the Wututu-Ewongo football tournament.

32 years ago my father relocated to Wututu from Limbe. My father was working in hotel management so he built his house and was planning his retirement. We've lived here for 32 years and in 2016 the Anglophone crisis in the restive North West and South West regions broke out and 80% of the villagers in this Wututu village and Ewongo, which is part of the Bojongo court area, fled the village. That includes women and children because of the fighting between the separatist forces and the government forces.

It was terrible. We have bullet holes which are becoming very characteristic of this part of the country and a lot of the youthful population, including, as I mentioned earlier, women and children fled because it's a farming community where people live mostly on subsistence farming. I thought that it was terrible. I didn't come here for so many years and I decided that it was extremely important to bring back the young population back to the village to create a new lease of life because it was like a ghost village.

We had remnants of the war and I created this tournament just for us to use the transformative power of sports to bring back a new lease of life in this community. So we started in 2021, I think June to August of 2021 and five years down the road we are still doing this for the community.

How has the vision evolved over these five years?

Edwin Eselem: Everywhere I go, I see people tell me, where do you live? I live in Wotutu. Are you going back? I go back to Wotutu because my mom lives here, my family is here. But because of what happened in this village, because this became like the bastion of the fighting between the separatists and the government forces, so you had a lot of people who were running away from this part of town and to have that courage to bring people back to sports and football was very transformative and very convenient.

So I have remarks from people like, you know, members of parliament, senators, lawyers, professors, journalists like you, people of the media and including the civil society saying that we are part of this initiative and I think last year you were here and you saw the support from businessmen, the community, the traditional rulers. This morning I was with the traditional ruler of Ewongo village, the village where the Catholic school is situated and the feedback has been very positive in the sense that we see a lot of support.

This year, you have seen sponsors from Biaka Group, the University Institute of Biaka, and Betatinz, we have Pan African Visions, Galax, Vista Print, all of these people coming back, to support this initiative because they see value in it. They see value in this community becoming, you know, vibrant in this community, living up to the true meaning because this is like the road community, right? Like a lot of development happening here. It's like the link between Limbe and Buea and a lot of people pass here to go to Limbe, to Buea, to Bojongo and all of that. So this competition needed to give people a strong signal that, there is hope for our community.

What role has the tournament played in uniting the people of Wotutu and Ewongo?

Edwin Eselem: It's extremely important. When we're playing, for example, there was an incident that happened, I think, two years ago where a neighbouring village from Buana, had a team that came and won the championship and there was a kind of a scuffle, and I said, this is not about the prize money; it's about bringing the villages together. I think the committee at the time which was made up of local members of the community, said they did not want players and young people from other villages in the Bojongo court area, which Wotutu is one of them.

I said, no, it's not about, just the village of Wotutu. It's about all the surrounding villages. And I made a decision that we will integrate other, villages in the Bojongo court area so that the other youths also can benefit from it and you can occupy them during the holiday. So, to say that it's the pool factor, Wotutu is the conduit, but other villages, other communities and every other person who passes through this community are benefiting from the fact that there are, two months of, fun, of the jamboree, of fanfare and just the fact that we know that we're in a safe place, everyone is happy.

Can you talk to us about Season 5? What are we expecting from Season 5? How many teams are participating?

Edwin Eselem: Right now, we have 10 teams. At the beginning of last year, we started a female category. So, I think we had four teams. This year, we have three teams that are registering. But since we're starting a little bit earlier than we started last year, I think the registration process is still ongoing. We're still expecting, a couple of other female teams.

We still kept the same prize money, 1 million francs a year, which has been shared amongst all the winning teams. But we see lots and lots of support, as I mentioned earlier from civil society members, members of parliament, senators, the business community, and friends because a lot of my friends are supporting this initiative. We're seeing that they are part of this, like we usually say, rising tides lift all boats, right? So, everybody's trying to do their bit, to make sure that this community is vibrant; it's back on its feet.

What makes Season 5 of the Wotutu-Ewongo Football Tournament so special?

Edwin Eselem: Well, what makes Season 5 so special; I think that people are beginning to understand the transformative power of sports. Sports are no longer recreation. Sports bring people together. We know through sports, we can preach peace, we can preach community development.

We see a lot bringing people together, and people are having fun. I think that ultimately the goal of this tournament is, probably, to see how we can use it not only during a short-term initiative of actually having a tournament that runs for two months, but how, for example, we can use this initiative, maybe in the long run, build a football academy, a sports academy, or can have people playing in this tournament.

If they want to have a pathway in the sports ecosystem, that's something that we're looking at in the long run. It's too early. We're only scratching the surface, right? But with the support that we're having from you guys and the exposure that we're going to have, we hope to do better things.

What have been the biggest challenges in organizing and sustaining the tournament over five years?

Edwin Eselem: That's a great question. I think the first challenge that we have is resources, financial resources. And because this is, a personal initiative, because, I live in this community.But as I mentioned earlier, we're getting some support now from, the traditional rulers, from friends and some organizations. I mentioned the Biaka Group, which is supporting us very strongly this year.

When you do a kind of initiative like this, people think that maybe you have some political ambitions, right? This is an opportunity for me to make a clarion call to the village community, especially the traditional council, that, it's very important for these young people, to see the importance of sports and what it brings to the village in terms of peace, social cohesion and development.

So those are some of the challenges that we are navigating. The feedback from most members of the community is very positive. And we don't look at those challenges, we try to, overstep those hurdles as we move on to our milestone fit season, which starts this year.

What is the message that you're giving to the youth and the players participating in the tournament?

Edwin Eselem: I know that everyone has that spirit of competition, but my message to them is going to be one of fair play, one of peace, one of solidarity and brotherhood. Let's not forget where we're coming from. In 2021, there was no football tournament in this village.There were no young people in this village. They fled and went to Limbe, some went to the Littoral region, some went to as far as Souza and all of those places out of here because it was tough and intense.

The message is about social cohesion peace and solidarity, bringing people together to have fun.That's the message that I'm giving to them, that they should really have fun on the field and they should really take advantage of this opportunity to use this product, this opportunity, this tournament to lift the banner of Wotutu very high.

How can well-wishers, partners, or sponsors support the tournament moving forward?

Edwin Eselem: I think as of yesterday, I think it was a category one financial institution that reached out to me and I sent them a support case, which includes the number of teams in both the male and female categories, the prize money.Also, the fact that at the end of the tournament, which occurs during the period of back to school on the 31st of August, a week before school resumed, we also offered didactic material to the kids because that's what we did last year through one of our partners and one of our sponsors.

So we encourage sponsors to come. It doesn't necessarily need to be money or financial, but also they can give, for example, didactic material to the kids, school books, pens, and pencils, or they can even sponsor the kids at the Catholic school or at the government school.That's what we need for the community.

Looking ahead, where do you see the Wotutu-Ewongo Interquarter Tournament in the next five years?

Edwin Eselem: I think you are hitting very strong points. I mentioned earlier, that the long-term goal is, to use, you know, this tournament as a conduit for other things.I'm in the business of sports and the ecosystem of sports is very booming. Sports today represent so many things. You have the athletes on the court, we have other people who are like you, media people, content creators, who have broadcasts, we have scouts, and we have coaches.

So why not in the next, five years, we are talking about maybe, having a football team, a sports league, and an academy in Wotutu right out of this tournament? That will have players out of here, go and play professional football in the local leagues, feeding the local leagues, or even going to Europe and the US. We are not discarding any options, but I think that we'll have to ramp before we walk. We are taking it step by step. But I think that sports are a great pathway for young people, and young people should take sports, extremely seriously.

What does it mean to you personally to have sustained this dream for five years?

Edwin Eselem: I don't make it all about me. You see people who organize holiday championships, because of political reasons; you see their effigies on the fliers and the posters. We don't do that; we are doing it for the community. At the end of each championship, what I always ask them is, do you want us to do another edition, and it is always in unison, yes.  We'll keep support, personal resources, and support from friends, who love what we do, that we get all of this. I think that it's a great win for this community, what we've been doing.

In one word, sum up the Wotutu-Ewongo Football Tournament.

Edwin Eselem: Social cohesion.