The return of the prodigal sons

The timing was near perfect and the message was well-packaged. We are about qualifying for our third World Cup participation in succession and it is time we bring back into the fold, the superstars who opted out of action. The intervention of the President was paramount and very significant. There were photographs with the President to signify how important they are and how dearly we miss them, at least that is how they may think. I am talking about four footballers – Michael Essien, Kevin-Prince Boateng, Andre Ayew and Jordan Ayew – who one time or the other, decided not to feature for the Black Stars, our national football team. The case of Michael Essien, to me, sound quite rational and reasonable. He had been on the injured list for a whole season. He got injured while on national duty and for almost a year, his club, Chelsea of London had to spend hard cash to restore him to good health and fit enough to go back into active football. As a reciprocal gesture, he decided to devote his time to his club, at least for a period while testing his fitness. Very few will fault him for such a decision for obvious reasons. What will be his club’s reaction, should he get injured again while on national duty? Do not forget that the man is not growing younger. Moreover, our country has not got any good record of compensating those who suffer on its behalf on such assignments. Essien did not snub us. He officially asked to be excused for national duty for some time. As stated earlier, it is only fair that considering his peculiar case, an accommodating ear was given to his plea. Kevin-Prince Boateng was blunt. He will not play for the national team again, period. Every effort was made to convince him to rescind his decision. He was approached by his coaches, friends, playing colleagues and other important personalities, but he will not budge. He had just been brought into the limelight by featuring for the Black Stars in the World Cup in South Africa and his market value had gone up, so it is only fair that he reciprocates that gesture. At first it was rumoured that his decision had something to do with travelling expenses and other monetary matters. His official explanation was that he could not cope with club and national duty which was taking a heavy toll on him. His excuse is one of the most unreasonable ever heard. Every member of the national team is first and foremost a club footballer and to say you cannot cope with both is to say that he does not care about the national interest. His interest is clearly where his stomach is, no two ways about that. When the management of the Black Stars changed hands, Coach Kwasi Appiah made fresh efforts to bring Kevin-Prince Boateng back into the fold, but like previous efforts were futile. Kevin-Prince Boateng is not going to play for the Black Stars alone. He will still play club football. If he could not yesterday when he was much younger, I do not see how he could cope today when age will be telling on him. Andre Ayew had a different case. He informed the management of the Black Stars that he was treating an injury with his personal physician. The coach agreed with him in part, but stressed that he still had to be with the team by a definite date or be counted out. The rules were not made by Coach Appiah. They are standard rules that every footballer worth his sort should be aware of. Every tournament has a deadline by which participating teams are to submit the names of their players and Ghana could be granted any special exemption. Under the circumstances, Coach Appiah did the most rational by submitting the names of those available. To prove how important and indispensable he is, Andre Ayew announced publicly and wrote officially to the management of the national team that he is not available for national duty until further notice, whatever that means. His younger brother, Jordan Ayew followed suit by dissociating himself from the Black Stars for the simple reason that he was not picked by the coach for CAN 2011 in South Africa. Nobody can discount the fact that those who feature for the nation in sporting events do so purely as a sacrifice, sometimes without any monetary reward. When they succeed, we all share in the glory. When they fail, very often, we vilify and distance ourselves from them. Of course it is not sacrifice all the way especially when the job has been well-executed. National players become instant heroes and sometimes their bank accounts swell up by a few thousands of Ghana Cedis. The possibility of signing bigger and more lucrative contracts are also enhanced. All said and done, an invitation to do anything including playing football on behalf of the nation is an honour which many will cherish. All the same, to be part of a national endeavour is still a matter of choice and no one could be forced to do anything contrary to his/her wish. Again it is within the right of Ghana as a sovereign state to determine who should be called to national duty anytime, provided that person(s) are prepared to do the national sacrifice. It is not within the might of any individual or group of individuals to hold the nation to ransom by determining its choice for any national assignment. To declare that you will be available when you so wish, amounts to rating oneself above all others. Nobody can claim that indispensability. Even the Sun which is the source of energy for Earth does not rise everyday all over the globe but the Earth survives. It tells you that there are alternatives which unknown to the ordinary person may be better than the known. Those who are prepared to listen to their ego and abandon this country when it matters most, have no business crawling back to paint a picture as if while they were away, the world had stood still. While we recognise and appreciate their sacrifice, those footballers who feel too big for this nation, should realize that there many other Ghanaians that are making a lot of sacrifices sometimes at the peril of their lives so that this country can move on. You can mention them. Teachers, doctors, nurses, straight politicians, sanitary engineers, farmers, traders, Even though it can be argued that they are earning their living from what they are doing, the fact remains that without those services, our world will not be the same. Brazil has won the World Cup five unprecedented times. But those victories even though might have made Brazil popular in the world of football, have not reflected positively in the lives of the ordinary Brazilians. As you read this piece, hundreds of thousands of Brazilians are demonstrating against what they described as monstrous expenditure on the 2014 World Cup and the 2014 Olympiad while they could not access good education, medical care, housing and transportation. Whether we win the World Cup in Brazil or not, those who will yield the direct benefits are the players. The rest of us will only shout our voices hoarse in support and go home to sleep in our small, dark and hot rooms and possibly on empty stomachs. The little that we have will be used as bonuses for players and team leaders. They may even get brand new vehicles which many professionals cannot afford throughout their working lives. The bluff must, therefore, end. In short, those who dedicated themselves to the national cause and took us through the qualifying rounds should take us to Brazil. If we win, we will celebrate. If we lose, we will lick our wounds in dignity. The last thing we should do is to make this proud nation, a victim of persons who behave as if without them, we shall not see another day. fokofi@yahoo.co.uk kofiakordor.blogspot.com

The triumphant return from Yokohama

AFRICAN leaders have a queer concept of achievements. Whenever they go outside and portray the continent as poor and desperate for support and receive the expected promises, they return home waiving white handkerchiefs in a triumphant manner, satisfied that a mission has been accomplished. The latest of such international forum a was the Fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V) which was held in the Japanese city of Yokohama and ended last week. To the relief of African leaders, the Japanese government pledged a $32 billion development support for some African countries over the next five years. Our dear Ghana, is one of the beneficiaries of the Japanese bonanza. Our President, John Dramani Mahama, returned from Yokohama with the good news that the Japanese have offered to construct a new bridge over the Volta at Atimpoku to replace the old one at Adomi, which was constructed just before independence to link the southern part of the country to the north through the Volta Region. While we celebrate the kind gesture of the Japanese, it is important that we know the country called Japan, its resources and how it has become one of Africa’s major benefactors. Interestingly, Japan is a cluster of 6,852 islands with Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku as the four major ones which constitute about 97 per cent of the total land mass of the country. In terms of natural resources, Japan is nowhere near Africa. It does not command the rich mineral and forest resources that Africa can boast of. Japan has also not got good land for agricultural purposes. In short, Japan has to rely on China and south-east Asian countries for rice and other food imports. Apart from its limitations on natural resources, Japan is one country that has - over the years - suffered from natural and man-made disasters. Japan is the only country on record that has suffered from the evil effects of nuclear weapons. Getting close to the end of the Second World War, the United States of America (USA) dropped two atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, which had very devastating consequences. On August 6, 1945, the USA dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which killed between 90,000 and 166,000 people. On August 9, 1945, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, which killed between 60,000 and 80,000 people. Before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Americans, in an operation dubbed: ‘Operation Meetinghouse,’ killed over 100,000 people in Tokyo through aerial bombardments between March 9 and March 10, 1945. The Japanese have since recovered from the Second World War, but the scars of Hiroshima and Nagasaki continue to live with them. Japan is not only a victim of nuclear weapons. Almost all the islands are earthquake-prone. On January 17, 1995, an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale occurred in Kobe, killing at least 6,434 people and rendering hundreds of thousands homeless. As recent as March 11, 2011, Japan suffered the strongest earthquake in its recorded history which triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster, one of the worst nuclear disasters in the world. From the ashes of nuclear annihilation and natural disasters notwithstanding, Japan emerged as an economic and industrial giant on the global landscape. Until a few years ago, Japan was the second largest economic power in the world, next to the USA. Its position has been taken over by another dark horse, China, as the new economic and industrial miracle of the world. Japan remains a major industrial power and big names such as Toyota Motor Corporation, Canon, Honda, Nissan, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sharp, Nippon Steel and Nippon Oil continue to hold high the flag of patriotism, nationalism, hard work and industrial acumen that Japan is noted for. This is the country that leaders of a continent that has unlimited resources troop to in search of resources, including money to build their countries. They were all excited for the promises and pledges made to them, not knowing that they had left behind in their own countries, resources that were more than enough for their needs. Japan and other countries are always excited when they see leaders of resource-rich African countries coming to them, cup in hand, begging for pittance. It keeps them in full control. It enables them to maintain the stranglehold on the so-called poor African countries. That is why they would not tell them the truth. That they should go back and think and act, instead of talking and begging. They will not tell them to stop stealing their own national resources and putting them in their private bank accounts and, instead, use the money to develop their countries. Are we not ashamed that Japan, a country of 127 million people, 73 per cent of whose land are not suitable for agriculture, industrial or residential use, should be our safety valve when we have everything that they do not have? It seems our leaders do not know that the rest of the world is laughing at us when we go out there soliciting for alms while it is common knowledge that unbridled corruption and ineptitude have conspired to strangulate all of our development efforts. Yokohama was the last stop. Where next? Is it going to be Brasilia, Beijing or Havana?

Still under the yoke of inferiority complex

I was not surprised to read from Dr Koku Awoonor-Williams’ article: “Good average B okay for medical school” published in yesterday’s issue of the Daily Graphic that there was initial resistance to President Kwame Nkrumah’s decision to establish a medical school in the country. When Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, the heart surgical specialist, came down from Germany with the lofty idea of setting up what has now become the National Cardiothoracic Centre, there were murmurs of dissent. There were those who, for lack of faith in their own abilities and capabilities, could not come to terms with the idea of Ghana, an African Third World country, dreaming of a medical facility that would demand highly trained specialists and sophisticated equipment. To such people, it would be better and, they claimed, cheaper to fly out heart and other related health patients for treatment overseas. Thanks to a listening President in the person of Flt-Lt J.J. Rawlings, Prof. Frimpong Boateng’s idea received support and crystallised into a centre that every patriot should be proud of. Our colonial past has left us with a deep scar that would not vanish; a scar that has affected our psyche as a people. So if it is not foreign, it is not good. Even the foreign comes with various classifications; it is best if it comes from Britain, Germany, France or the US. In the 1960s, made-in-Japan vehicles were considered inferior to those from UK and Germany. Today, Japanese vehicles are virtually out of our reach and we have now turned our attention to Chinese vehicles. Our obsession with foreign things have become a national disease. Hairdressers advertise themselves as London-trained or Paris-trained if that would testify to their expertise. Our carpenters are very good and could produce some of the best furniture in the world, but our mentality would not allow us to accept our own. We prefer Italian-made furniture. Without the necessary support and encouragement, our local furniture producers are not able to break into the international market with their products. Our country has become destination of furniture from various parts of the world, including the almighty China. Competitions or promotions held in Ghana come with tantalising prizes which include Accra-London-Accra or Accra-New York-Accra air tickets. Lately, Accra-Johannesburg-Accra has become part of the package because we have come to realise that the White population in South Africa have turned that country into a comparative paradise as compared to the rest of the continent. Nobody has given a thought to the fact that the numerous islands of the Volta Lake, the Mole Game Reserve, the high altitude at Amedzofe in the Volta Region and other tourist potentials in the country could become the tourist’s paradise if only we shirk the lethargy and our colonial mentality and its endemic inferiority complex and develop these places for our own pleasure for the millions of foreigners who would want to enjoy our tropical weather when it is winter in their home countries. Our under-development and near hopelessness rest in the fact that deep within us we believe that we are not capable of doing anything good on our own. Listen to the arguments people make when some of us raise issue with the fact that it is time for our football administrators to give our local coaches the opportunity to enter the world stage by coaching our national team – the Black Stars. Not that the foreign coaches have brought us any glory anyway but we are satisfied that a white-skinned person is coaching our national team. That is our joy. Projects, workshops and seminars are not complete unless a consultant is flown from outside—at great expense—preferably from Europe or the US, to come and deliver an incoherent lecture that may not have any bearing on our local circumstances. Some of these so-called foreign consultants are just above average performers who are nowhere near some of our local experts. Other people take pride in what they produce locally while we scorn ours. The dependency syndrome which will not allow us to harness our vast resources for national development is a product of inferiority complex that will make us see emptiness where there are tonnes of wealth. If China can shock the world with its development, there is no reason why Ghana cannot do so, but that will involve a change of mentality from that of subservience to self-confidence and the determination to succeed with local resources, whether human or material. fokofi@yahoo.co.uk kofiakordor.blogspot.com