Ghana's Four AFCON Wins and Local Coaches-The Myth

Whenever the issue of the AFCON and whether we require foreign or local coaches comes up, we are all quick to point out, that Ghana has won four AFCONs, all with local coaches. But is it as simple as that? I am not going to pretend to have all the answers, but in the spirit of AFCON which we are all eagerly awaiting, I believe this is as good a time as any to discuss this issue. Indeed Ghana has won four AFCONS under local coaches, but who are these coaches? Three of the victories, two in the sixties and one in 1982 were all won by Mr C. K Gyamfi. This is a gentleman who played for Asante Kotoko, but at an early age, was ambitious enough in coaching to establish his own football club and become its player coach, managing to take them up to the first division as it then was.. He later played for Accra Hearts of Oak and then proceeded to Fortuna Dusseldorf to become the first African footballer in the German league. When he retired, he was sponsored by Ghana to obtain his coaching badges immediately and then came back home to coach the Black Stars. In terms of experience, training and outlook, Ck Gyamfi was no different from any other top European coach. He was at the cutting edge in terms of football knowledge and team building. His coaching manuals became coaching “bibles” all over Africa and indeed, when the German Rudi Gutendorf took over the Black Stars in nineteen eighty six, he expressed surprise that he was needed in Ghana at all when CK Gyamfi was around. After all that he achieved in Ghana, and despite being internationally recognised and respected, CK Gyamfi was left to wander off to try to make a living in places like Somalia and Kenya while our national team struggled, but that is another matter. The fourth AFCON was won in Accra by Mr Osam Duodu in 1978 in the late stages of the Kutu Acheampong era. It is interesting to know, that the Ghana team, all local players at the time, had been camped in one of Brazil’s famous football academies, under the supervision of a Brazilian football professor (yes, they do have football professors in Brazil) for close to two months in preparation for the tournament. We had never prepared for a football tournament that well before in our history and have not since. Interestingly, the same Osam Duodu was in charge when we were kicked out in the first round of the next tournament in Nigeria. The point I am making, is that it is only sheer coincidence that we happen to have won four AFCONS with local coaches and not because our local coaches have some special skill suited for the AFCON. The Ghana team that won the AFCON in 1982 had just two foreign-based players – George Alhassan who played for FC 105 in Gabon and Emmanuel Quarshie who played for Zamalek in Egypt. Cameroun also had two Frence-based players. It was in the next competition in La Cote d’Ivoire in 1984 that the influx of foreign-based professionals started with Cameroon winning the competition with 5 Europe-based professionals and a foreign coach. The rest, as they say, is history. Ghana’s relationship with foreign coaches started from independence, but we must not lose sight of the numerous administrative hiccups, sheer organisational incompetence and the corruption that has often frustrated many a foreign coach. It is interesting to observe, however, that Hassan Shehata, the only other African coach to have equalled CK Gyamfi’s record, has, like CK Gyamfi, always relied on locally-based professional footballs. In fact, Egypt does not suffer the kind of mass exodus of players prevalent in West Africa. In the 2010 AFCON, only three of the Egyptian players were foreign-based while Ghana had a mainly foreign-based team. Why are Egypt’s best footballers not keen to go abroad? It is because they just don’t have to. Their local league has developed to a point where the players are comfortable and well-paid in Egypt and training facilities are better than any Ghana can dream of. That brings us to the question – does it matter what colour of skin a coach has on our bench? And the answer to that is, that it does not matter one jot. Even England, the home of football, has had to resort to foreign coaches at some points in their recent history. The idea that we can somehow turn our search for national coaches into exercises in jingoism and xenophobia baffles me. We need the best-qualified individual for the post and at the moment, with the quality of our football league, the training facilities we have and the one-week training courses we organise for coaches to earn a coaching certificate, unfortunately, the average local coach in Ghana is way behind his foreign counterpart, if the latter has been coaching in the European top division. I am not proud to say that, but it is the reality. It is not as simple as just picking the next available black man, making a lot of noise and hoping for the best. It is about track record, proven competence and achievement at the highest level of coaching. What we need to do is to deal with the problem from the basics. Mr Kuffuor did well, building the Tamale and Sekondi Sports Stadia. Every region in Ghana has to have a top class stadium, complete with modern training facilities. We need to seek the funding and invest in our local leagues to whip up interest so we can increase remuneration of our players. We need to have a West African College of Coaching with strict entrance criteria and world class teaching and examinations, to train our coaches for the future. England have tried to solve their own problem by building the 100 million pound St George’s Park complex at Burton which is not only a coach- development centre but also a training home for all their national teams. The centre has ultra- modern facilities for coaching, Sports Science, Sports Medicine, Sports Psychology etc. It was built in response to the realisation that England was falling way behind other European countries in terms of coaching capability and technical ability. So it is not easy! We may not have 100 million pounds, but we sure can start from somewhere. Papa Appiah www.ghanansemsem.blogspot.com

Kwabena Agyapong! How the Mighty are Falling!

Kwabena Agyapong amazes me. This is a guy who used to be a hero of mine. To be fair, this was at a time when I was much younger and more foolish than I am now and anyone who correctly strung a few English words together was a hero of mine. I particularly remember watching the 1990 World Cup on television when Kwabena Agyapong, alongside the likes of Foe Amoaning and Carl Tuffuor charmed the nation not only with their wide knowledge of world football, but also with their eloquence and demeanour. Unfortunately, the charming young man who then was has grown into what appears to be, an angry old man in a complete reversal of the usual course of the rhythm of life. Watching him on Newsfile a few times recently, he talked and looked very much like a guy who had seen better days and as if life had given him a raw deal. But this is a “multi-talented” civil engineer who started off as a sports presenter, dabbled in football management amidst allegations of financial impropriety, ended up as presidential spokesman and then as presidential candidate of the NPP. To see him viciously attacking the personalities of his political opponents was sad indeed. In one such exchange with the young NDC “parrot” Felix Kwakye-Ofosu, he conceded, that the NDC communicators had a deliberate ploy to attempt to make their opponents angry on air, and then, with his face contorted in sheer fury, belched “But I am not angry!!” I bowed my head in shame. The guy had lost it right before our very eyes. How the mighty are falling. Speaking English well can only take one so far. While we all admire Mr Agyapong’s eloquence, when he starts to attempt to ridicule others and question, for instance, why anybody would elect Mr Hassan Ayariga, “ a man who cannot get his grammar right” as their presidential candidate, the alarm bells start ringing for some of us. Sorry Sir, you seem to be getting carried away. What has speaking English got to do with anything? I would not vote for Hassan Ayariga, but not for a reason as so hopelessly ridiculous as his grammar, but because he failed to address any of the pertinent issues to my satisfaction. Until such time as we eradicate that entire mentality that equates an ability to rattle another man’s language with competence, we stand the danger of being ruled by well-spoken fools. The issue of Nana Addo’s rather unexpected departure from Oxford University came up in one of the debates, and Mr Agyapong sought to lambast Mr Tsatsu Tsikata for daring to say elsewhere, that he had heard rumours of Nana’s departure from Oxford when he entered the university but was not sure what the actual reason was. Again, Mr Agyapong, lips trembling, went to town, expressing gross disappointment in Mr Tsatsu Tsikata; a guy who used to come to their house, a guy who was the beneficiary of Mr Agyapong’s father’s legal cases when the latter had been called to the Supreme Court and so on. Has this guy completely lost his marbles? What has all that got to do with anything? I felt embarrassed for him and for the NPP. If such was the mentality of the people the party put forward as communicators, then it was no wonder the party could not connect with the ordinary floating voter in Ghana. Kwabena Agyapong was amongst the NPP top hierarchy that fought tooth and nail to have their own polling agents in every polling station and at every point, all the way to the Electoral Commission’s strong room. They may deny that now for political expediency, but the purpose of that was to take the onus of responsibility for the accuracy of the results at the grassroots from the Electoral Commission into the parties’ own hands. The argument was that if the results were signed off by all the party agents, then the results would have been certified as fair. That is why Kwabena Agyapong’s analogy, that if you have a security man at home and your goods were stolen, you would still complain to the police, sounded quite embarrassingly childish to me. Of course you would tell the police but what you would not do, is to blame the police. And when Mr Agyapong relates Nana Addo’s illustrious past and personal sacrifices in the battle against dictatorship and the establishment of a free and democratic country, few would argue with that. We need to give the guy some credit. After all, he was involved in Radio Eye when it was ever so dangerous to do so in those days, and has been a presidential aspirant for years. How then do we reconcile these lofty democratic credentials with all-die-be-die? Again, while Nana’s legal credentials are not in doubt, it is baffling why such a legal luminary would file a case in the Supreme Court and then hold a press conference to try the case in the court of public opinion and to whip up sentiments. I have known cases thrown out of court for just these same reasons. There are too many contradictions to contend with. At one time Mr Akuffo-Addo was going to accept results as declared by the Electoral Commission, now he is only going to accept a Supreme Court verdict. But is he? Who knows? And by the way, Mr Agyapong, it does not matter which country a man comes from, how old he is, what qualifications he has, what sacrifices he has made in the past, how many lawyers he has taught, if he then goes on to promote a policy of all-die-be-die and fails to publicly condemn genocidal sentiments expressed by a close political ally, we are perfectly entitled to disrespect him. For at the end of the day, some of us care more for the lives of our grandmothers in the village than for some buffoons of politicians. Electoral processes are dynamic. Even America, with their long tradition of voting, had to contend with unacceptably long queues and people being disenfranchised in their recent elections. Obama had to promise to get those problems “fixed” in his victory speech. So we owe it a duty to our democracy, not only to audit performance after each single election to ensure that we identify mistakes, but also, to effect changes aimed at making our system stronger. And thank you very much; we are well capable of doing that as a nation, without NPPs reckless declaration of results, demonstrations, useless press conferences and stabbing of innocent Ghanaians. We have come a long way as a nation in our electoral processes. We started by changing over to transparent boxes. That was not enough. We introduced picture ID cards. That was not enough to prevent multiple voting. We asked for foreign independent observers. Five different groups of observers are no longer enough. We asked for party polling agents every step of the way. That is no longer enough. The Electoral Commission should be responsible for how these agents perform, according to Mr Agyapong and the NPP. We asked for results to be faxed. That is no longer enough. The faxed documents, apparently, are being intercepted and altered to favour one candidate. We requested biometric verification. That has now become the problem rather than the solution. Now, to top it all, Mr Agyapong is asking for the Electoral Commission as currently constituted to be disbanded and one set up that has representatives of each political party. You have spoken like a true prodigy Mr Agyapong, but would that be enough should the NPP lose an election? Your guess is as good as mine. Papa Appiah Ghanansemsem.blogspot.com

War in Ghana? Let Wisdom Reign

The tide is turning. The inferno is ablaze. The writing is on the wall for all who have eyes, to see. We are drowning in an abyss of political immaturity. And in the midst of all that, politicians who once posed as beacons of democratic change and human rights in Africa are either silent or are coming up with the most abject and disgraceful defence of the indefensible. The stakes are rather high. Both major political parties have had a taste of what it means to be in power in Ghana – untold opulence at the expense of our people. Oil has been discovered. Opportunities for self-enrichment abound. So people have lost all sense of proportionality and balance, and wisdom has been thrown to the dogs. Have our moral standards deteriorated to such an extent that the law of the jungle now reigns in Ghana? Where being rich and owning a radio station arrogates to one the power to “declare war in Ghana”? Our country has come a long way. Cherish the peace we enjoy, for people have had to shed their blood for it. In July 2005, a group of Moslem men packed with explosives boarded trains in the UK and detonated their bombs, killing 51 innocent passengers. No individual dared go on radio to declare war on Moslems. Why would a few misguided incidents of violence during a democratic process, so infuriate one to the extent of declaring war? There is a difference. The latter involves issues of power and wealth. Have we not learnt from incidents of history? Does the genocide in Rwanda seem so far off? Did it not start with incendiary, tribalistic utterances on radio and where did it lead to? We should not take our peace for granted for it is not too long ago that the Oguaa Akoto were thrashing the thousands of Ashanti warriors. It is in the DNA. So where are our leaders when we need them? Where is our president? Where was he when his men were fomenting trouble? Our president does not have to wear a police uniform to exert authority. A president should exude authority so we obey them merely out of respect. Not everybody has the qualities of a president, and if Atta Mills cannot do the job, then he should quit. Not a single member of the NPP has condemned the utterances, and the party has not dissociated itself from the comments. But the most disgraceful of all was the comment by Kuffuor regarding using a sledge hammer to kill a fly. The least said about that the better. Kuffuor has obviously not visited Ghanaweb. In the end, we are all one people, one nation and with one destiny. We rise together and fall together. So let freedom reign, for our very existence depends on it. Let peace reign, for we have come too far to turn around. Let free speech reign, but with a sense of responsibility of the borders of acceptability, but above all, fellow Ghanaians, let wisdom reign! Papa Appiah Lexeve1@yahoo.co.uk www.ghanansemsem.blogspot.com

Robert Mensah and the Battle of Kinshasa

Robert Mensah and the Battle of Kinshasa

The recent football contest between Ghana’s Black Meteors and the Nigerian Dream team was, in a way, a throwback to Ghana’s battles with the Congo, especially in the early seventies. There were allegations of substandard accommodation, of refereeing ineptitude and hints of juju. Back then, however, the choice was not between a three star hotel and a four star one. It was between having a bed or just a table, as Asante Kotoko found out in the second leg of the final of the 1970 African Club Championship in Kinshasa against Tout Puissant Englebert.
TP Englebert had secured a 1-1 draw with Asante Kotoko in Kumasi and with no away-goal-rule at the time, needed to win the second leg outright to win the trophy. Asante Kotoko arrived in Kinshasa and were shocked to realize, that the accommodation reserved for them was a classroom block. There were armed soldiers loitering in the vicinity but they were not there for the protection of the players. They were there to ensure the team did not attempt to move away to another accommodation but would sleep on the tables and chairs in the classrooms and receive their fair share of mosquito bites. The Congolese are yet to confirm whether the mosquito-filled swamp at the back of the classroom was purpose-built for the benefit of Kotoko.


Asante Kotoko were led on the day of the match by Sunday Ibrahim and the team featured such great players like Malik Jabir, Abukari Gariba, Yaw Sam and Osei Kofi but the star of the side was undoubtedly, the enigmatic giant of a goalkeeper, Robert Mensah. Those who saw him in action still swear that Robert is the best goalkeeper they ever saw. His personal charisma and the fact that he died so young may yet have clouded people’s judgement to a degree but from all accounts, he was a genius in the post. Like all truly gifted people, however, he had his flaws and for Robert, this happened to be indiscipline. In fact, he was stabbed to death in “Credo” akpeteshie bar in Tema on a day when his team mates were in camp in Kumasi preparing for a continental game.
Asante Kotoko took the lead early in the game through “goal na mafefe” Abukari Gariba. Congolese strongman Kalala equalized before Englebert conceded a second goal, scored by Malik Jabir. When the referee whistled for a rather dubious penalty for Englebert in the last few minutes, with the score at 2-1, Coach Aggrey Fynn and other Kotoko officials decided to call their players off the pitch in protest against the blatant attempt at robbery. They protested vehemently to no avail until, to the surprise of all and sundry, Robert went up to the officials and pleaded with them to allow the game to go ahead. If there was any justice in the world, he said, it would not be beyond the realms of possibility for him, Robert, to save the day. When the officials finally gave in, Robert Mensah ran to the goalpost, took off his famous white cap and hit the cross bar and the two side posts with it. He put his cap back on, stood on the goal line, opened his arms wide and beckoned to Kakoko, the Congolese penalty expert, to shoot.
There had been simmering rumours about Robert Mensah’s cap and what it did or did not contain but things came to a head once he had started brandishing it as a “weapon” in the heat of battle. The Congolese complained to the referee about “the goalkeeper’s cap” and he ordered Robert to remove his cap before the penalty kick. There was a “volcanic eruption”. Robert Mensah was not about to remove his cap. That cap, a gift from his grandfather, a Cape Coast fetish priest, before he solemnly passed away, and which embodied the glorious spirits of his illustrious ancestors long gone was not about to be cast aside. That cap, his cherished companion in great battles for both Asante Kotoko and the Black Stars in countries far and wide without even the slightest hint of a complaint from anybody was not about to be cast aside at this crucial moment in the final of Africa’s premier club competition. Robert Mensah walked out of the goalpost while the referee shamelessly threatened to end the game in favour of Englebert.
The Asante Kotoko officials who only a short while earlier had been coerced by Robert to allow the game to on, now wished the game over and done with and quietly hoped the giant would change his mind. But who was going to be brave enough to say that to an angry Robert? Soon, an elderly man was seen scuttling down from the directors’ box and engaged in verbal exchanges with riffle-wielding solders who were trying to stop him from entering the pitch. He was the Kotoko president of the time, I.K. Moukerzel. He finally made it unto the pitch, sat by Robert and asked the angry goalkeeper to look him in the eye.
“Robert” he said “you know and I know, that we are being robbed here. But are we going to run away? No! Because that is not the Asante Kotoko way. If need be Robert, we should lose this cup fighting to the very last man.........”
Whether Robert was touched by this message or that he suddenly realized he could be losing the psychological battle will never be known. What is known is that, the great man suddenly leapt unto his feet, threw his cap angrily unto the pitch, run fiercely into the goal, spread out his long arms and beckoned to Kakoko once again to shoot.
Meanwhile, a small group of Congolese soldiers had, amidst cheers from the fans, picked up Robert’s cap with the tip of a bayonet, displaying it as a trophy. Officials of Asante Kotoko finally succeeded in retrieving it, but not before the soldiers had slashed through the inner lining of the cap in a desperate search for the elusive juju they believed was tucked away somewhere in there. Then silence.......! The long period of anticipation and the psychological intrigues had had its toll and one would have thought an earthquake had started, judging from the wobbly legs of Kakoko. It was no wonder, therefore, that he half-kicked the turf as he sent the ball miles over the bar. Asante Kotoko had won.
General Mobuto Sese Seko had had a difficult 5 years in power. By 1970, however, nearly all potential threats to his rule, including Patrice Lumumba, had been smashed. This year marked the pinnacle of Mobuto’s legitimacy and power. Even though Englebert had won the trophy before, Mobuto had been desperate for them to win the 1970 edition to raise the spirit of a depressed nation and serve as a comfortable springboard for future ambitions. Before handing the cup over to Sunday Ibrahim, he turned to his people, his face contorted in disappointment and sheer fury, “You Congolese,” he said “it is because of your foolishness that this cup is going to Ghana.”
Papa Appiah
Lexeve1@yahoo.co.uk

ALL DIE BE DIE - Reinforcing the Cycle of Fear

All Die Be Die –Reinforcing the Cycle of Fear
Nana Akuffo- Addo is not one for making “boom” speeches and neither should we expect him to be. The least Ghanaians should expect of a potential leader, in this new era, is a man who thinks carefully before speaking and who means every word he says. That is why we must take his “all die be die” comment rather seriously. We seem to be moving from an era of intimidating military threats at June 4th parades to a more sinister call to Ghanaians to be prepared to shed blood to make one man president, thus perpetually reinforcing the cycle of fear amongst Ghanaians. Ghana deserve better.
Nana Akuffo -Addo is determined to be president. It is his democratic right. In Arthur Kennedy’s much criticized book –Chasing the Elephant into the Bush – Lord Commey was said to have objected to being excluded from Field Operations in the NPP campaign “It is wrong to exclude the National Organiser from this and I want to put this on record” he is quoted to have said. Nana acknowledged Lord Commey’s comments “but since it is MY PRESIDENCY that is at stake”, he had responded “I am taking responsibility.” It is our hope, that one man’s personal and strong desire to be president does not cloud his judgement to the point of insinuating, however subtly, that others should be prepared to die for the course.
After all, what is there to die for? Let us, for the sake of argument, ignore every electoral malpractice and intimidation that occurred in the Ashanti Region in the 2008 elections and concentrate on what was purported to have happened in the Volta region and ask whether a single drop of Ghanaian blood is worth shedding for that. While strongly condemning any form of electoral malpractice and while advocating the institution of sensible measures to prevent the stuffing of electoral boxes and intimidation and sometimes violence to electorates, I wonder whether there are grounds for anyone to urge “an eye for an eye” policy and risk driving our country into the kind of electoral violence that has decimated other African countries.
What are a few “stuffed boxes” compared to the hundreds of years of systematic brutalizing and imprisonment of the black population in apartheid South Africa. Yet, Nelson Mandela did not suggest “all die be die.” He recommended a policy of reconciliation, of forgiveness and of an all-inclusive rainbow nation. “Forgiveness is a powerful weapon” he said “It liberates the soul and removes fear..... We have to be better than our enemy thinks we are. We have to surprise them with compassion, with restraint and with generosity. This is not time for petty revenge; this is the time to build our nation...”
And so where are the great leaders of our times when we need them in Ghana? Where is our Nelson Mandela? Where is our Aung San Suu Kyi, who continues to preach peaceful democratic change in Burma in the face of intense provocation and long imprisonment? Where is our Martin Luther King, who dared dream, in the face of gross injustice and oppression, and at a time when the life of the negro was “crippled with the manacles of segregation and discrimination”, that his four little children “would one day live in a nation where they would not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character,” while at the same time urging his people not to “seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred”. All die be die? Indeed!
At the end of the day, all die no be die. Men die with honour for great courses like defending their land from invasion. So I doff my hat to the great Ashanti Warriors and King Cetshwayo and his Zulu warriors who fought and died against British aggression. I doff my hat to Sergeant Adjetey and his fellow ex-servicemen, shot and killed in cold blood for daring to peacefully demonstrate in their own land. But to die in a rather peaceful country like Ghana to make one man achieve his ambition of becoming president would be, dare I say, unpardonable.
Ghanaians can be accused of many a weakness. We may be too friendly, too hospitable and, maybe, a wee too laid-back for our own good. However, nobody, nobody can ever accuse our people of wearing the doomed cloak of stupidity. And that is why we remain a beacon of hope and inspiration to the rest of Africa.

No Apology, Mrs Duffy

Bibiani is a little town in the western region of Ghana. Growing up in this town, I would often be woken up at dawn by the heavy boots of weary miners as they trod back and forth from the mines they worked at, digging gold for Mr Smith.
As a little boy, I would often stand and watch, away in the distance, the huge shameless monstrosity of an edifice that was the mine, belching endless volumes of smoke over the hills and into our bedrooms. The fumes hung in the air, lending a perpetual unpleasant smell to the environment. Many a man succumbed to horrible diseases, and tuberculosis was especially prevalent in the rather overcrowded ghettos that served as quarters for the miners.
When as kids we stood fascinated by the mauve-coloured soil in parts of the town, we had no inkling, that this was pollution at its worst and that our environment was being mercilessly degraded. We often enjoyed a game of football in the large stretch of land rendered grassless by the chemicals that flowed from the bottom of the mines nearby.
Poverty, rancour and disease reigned in this rather polluted environment, in the squalor of the ghettos. For, Bibiani, like all the other mining towns in Ghana, was one of the poorest towns one could ever see. The only half-decent buildings in the town were the bungalows over the hills, in the European quarters, where the Smiths lived. There was the European Club, complete with the best entertainment gadgets of the time, and the African Club, where once a week, we sat on bare concrete floors to watch a film of Mr Smith’s choice, often extolling the virtues of the empire and its rulers.
Every now and again, in Bibiani, heavily guarded vans would leave with their belly full of gold to be loaded unto trains bound for the port city of Takoradi, from where the gold would leave our shores aboard a British ship, never to return. And the few scattered railway tracks in Ghana were built by M r Smith, and interestingly, they all go through mining towns and end in the port of Takoradi. Thus were our natural resources so efficiently exhausted by Mr Smith. In fact, shortly after independence in 1957, the mines in Bibiani had to be shut down because there was so little gold left, that it was no longer considered economically worthwhile to mine. Poor miners were laid off and the town collapsed into a heap of depression and disease, from which it is still yet to fully recover. And the gold, my gold, would go over the seas to the ports of Liverpool, Bristol and Southampton to help build great institutions like the National Health Service and provide council houses to Britons at a pittance, while we remained in the squalor of our overcrowded, rat-infested, disease-filled ghettos in Bibiani. I owe you no apology Mrs Duffy.
Rochdale will have to go some to match up to the environment in Bibiani, despite the influx of “all those European immigrants” Mrs Duffy is worried about. Whiles Mrs Duffy’s concern was about Eastern Europeans, I believe, as Yasmin Alibbai- Brown wrote in her article in the Independence, that they were used symbolically for deeper indigenous worries. Being a black African, I take exception to her attack and believe my right to be in this country is being questioned. The Eastern Europeans are here by right, but we did not invite Mr Smith to Bibiani. Mr Smith did not have to face an immigration officer with a nasal twang telling him he was a liar, that he was not merely visiting, but actually intended to stay, change our culture and steal our gold. There was no Maasticht Treaty; there was no Australian-style point-based system to test whether Mr Smith belonged to tier 1 tier 2 or 3. There was no system to cap the number of Mr Smiths that entered Bibiani.
Mr Smith actually invaded our land, a gun hidden behind his back, a bible in his hand and whisky in his pocket. He came, violently abducting and selling the most productive people in my country into slavery. He came, and set up schools that forced students to wear blazzers in 32 degree Celsius heat and taught them the history of great English kings of yore, thus producing young men, confused as to who they really were and with little knowledge of their own rich heritage; of Komfo Anokye, Yaa Asantewaa and the great Asante Warriors. He came, and in the words of the Ghanaian poet, Kofi Awoonor, uprooted the tree that once stood and blossomed, and built in its place, a huge senseless cathedral of doom. I owe you no apology Mrs Duffy.
Mr Smith did not integrate in Bibiani. He stayed in his European quarters which were out of bounds to the likes of me. Neither did he offer libation to the seventy seven gods of Oguaa. He rained his culture and traditions unto us, to an extent, that while churches in England today are filled with octogenarians, the churches in Ghana overflow with young vibrant young people seeking solace in God for the myriad of problems they have to contend with.
I do not blame Mr Smith for all our problems. Ghana has been independent for over 50 years and a combination of poor management, corruption and military coups has partly left us in the predicament we are in. I am talking about the gold that was mined by Mr Smith for over a century in Bibiani. With that amount of gold, he could at least have left us with basic infrastructure to keep us going. So for instance, instead of scattering a few railway lines through mining towns to cart gold to the port, he should have provided a more extensive railway line with the convenience of the people at heart
And so, when poverty bites too hard and our weary bones can cope no more, we leave, for greener pastures in far away lands, in much the same way as Mr Smith descended on us. And where else to go, than to the land of the gentleman who patronized us and brutalized us in equal measure and who, only yesterday was digging gold from my backyard. Sure, he would understand.
So I owe Mrs Duffy no apologies. I walk down the corridors of the NHS with my head held high and look at its walls with pride, full in the knowledge, that Bibiani has played its part in establishing this august institution, and if indeed Mrs Duffy’s opinion is the feeling of the majority of the British populace, then I weep for Britain.
I came here for economic reasons. You have a problem with that? I am the little boy from Bibiani whose grandfathers died in the pits and suffered horrible diseases digging gold for Mr Smith. I have come to make my life better. And I intend to stay, my God will I stay, till I have had my full fair share of the honey that flows in the Social Security system in this country.

Author – Papa Appiah

Forced Joviality of the Guilty-A Journey to Cape Coast

I had been late in getting a ticket at the Government Transport, and as most of the schools in Cape Coast were re-opening on the same day, tickets had been hard to come by. The next best thing, I thought, was to go on a big Neoplan bus. One hoped and prayed, if somebody had invested so much money in purchasing a bus, that they might have invested in getting a good driver. And hopefully, one who would not have taken a quarter bottle of akpeteshie just for the road.

I queued for a ticket at the Neoplan station and shifted uncomfortably from one leg to the other as people who had not joined the queue went by and got their tickets. I felt like protesting, but my multiple multi-coloured suit cases gave me away as a “bugger” and I didn’t want to be accused of being “too-known”.

“Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Cape Coast!!! Fanteland, odokono ke fish! This is your line!!!” Atta Kofi the bookman was at work.

“Oh jejemeje Atta!” the big lady in front of me, who actually smelt of fish, responded. “We are all human beings and yet you take bribes and let people go to get tickets while we remain in the queue”

Atta Kofi turned to the woman and my heart missed a beat.

“Oh ahoofe, my beauty queen, you look much “sweeter” when you smile. Cape Coast, Cape Coast!!”

Everybody laughed. It took much more to upset a bookman. Atta Kofi turned and momentarily caught my eyes. He looked down and saw my luggage and possibly dreamt of silver and gold.

“Officer, come with me, let me start packing your luggage. You’ll sit in front”

Not wanting to be used as a pawn in his verbal duel with the other passengers, I refused.

“No I’m alright, let me buy my ticket first” I said

He looked at me in the way that made me feel I was a fool to refuse a good offer.
“Some people be “too-known”!” he said “You be Tony Blair?” Everybody laughed. I got no sympathy. I was always going to get a “too-known” tag, whatever I did.

In the bus, I watched the utter confusion as passengers got on the bus only to remember they had not been to the toilet and had to get down. I had to endure the young lady on my left shouting instructions over my head to her relatives outside the bus. There were others munching ravenously at turkey tails and babies crying out in anger at the discomfort of the heat in the stationary bus. Occasionally, the bus would wriggle its waist in protest as the bookmen tried to force even more luggage down its belly.

Outside, within the parking area, pools of muddy water from the rain the previous night meant people had to lift their trousers in a Michael Jackson stance before moon walking over them. There were vendors and more vendors and yet more vendors.

“Ice water!”

“kosua nie!”

“ankaa wo ha!”

I noticed the writing on the various buses and remembered a song by Nana Ampadu I had heard on the radio which said, the writing on a vehicle depended on how new or old it was. I noticed how true that was. The new buses were often ambitiously named, “Road Master, For the Love of a Girl, I love my Car, Good Father and I shall return. The older coaches, however, had more humble inscriptions like Slow but Sure, Mind Your Own Business, We shall Overcome, the Lord is My Shepherd, I shall Never Want.

The cacophony of blaring car horns, shouting vendors, abusive alcohol- reeking bookmen and crying babies all underneath the hot Accra morning sun was as good a welcome as anyone could expect and I was having a good time. I was, till Atta Kofi came on the coach, a stern look on his face. All the previous joviality had drained off his face. He wriggled his finger around in a counting motion and then announced that this coach actually took seven people in a row rather than six, in spite of the fact that there were actually six seats in a row. There were mumblings and insults and curses and more insults but Atta Kofi was unmoved. The reshuffling meant that I was now sitting with one thigh on a seat, but with the other wedged uncomfortably in the gap between two seats.

Finally, the driver got unto the bus, shoved a few crumpled notes into Atta Kofi’s hands and then bowed his head in a solemn personal prayer for the “battle” ahead. The sound of the engine when it came was reassuring and then the coach bobbed and weaved its way through human and vehicular traffic to get out of the station and unto the road to Cape Coast. The little babies, thankful for the refreshing breeze, soon fell asleep

“Let us pray!”

This was a gentleman who had stood near the driver’s seat directing people to their seats and being overly nice to everybody.

“Let us pray and commit this journey to God. ….Lord we come against all principalities and powers in the name of Jesus!! We destroy any plans the devil may have hatched for this journey in the name of Jesus!! Guide us safely to our destination oh Lord and once we get there, help us so we will be successful in whatever our mission may be. Amen!

“Amen!!” we all responded in unison.

“I am sure some of you know me” there were a few bows of approval from some of the passengers. “I have been doing the rounds in this station for the past five years. I go and come because people can’t have enough of my medicine.

“I am in demand because there are several men who need my help. If there is anyone here who takes a woman to bed only to admire their beads, then he needs my help.” You could sense the man was warming up.

“In fact, if you are here today and you are the kind of man who takes a woman to bed only to discuss her O’level results, then you need my help. For, let’s face it, you are not the minister for education!

“If you are not careful, women get to know your secret and then they start to make fun of you - Mr Mensah, they would say, I will sleep in your bed tonight, Oh Mr Mensah, may I sit on your lap? Mr Mensah, till death do us part…”

The sale when it started was slow, people not wanting to be seen to be too keen to advertise their erectile dysfunction. Then a gentleman at the back shouted;

“Give me one for a friend of mine. He is really suffering”
There was laughter and with the ice broken, the men started buying more enthusiastically. I gave money to the young gentleman in front of me to buy one for me and then pretended to be asleep to avoid the accusing looks from the young lady sitting on my left.

The coach sped through Winneba, then Mankesim and then arrived at Nyamoransa where we were stopped at a police barrier. The driver angrily picked a few notes, crumpled them up into his left hand and then let his left arm dangle loosely on the side of the bus through the window. The policeman stole up the driver’s side and with military precision took the money from him. Normally, that would have been all the police checks done for the day, except that this time the policeman had counted the money and being dissatisfied with the amount, had come back to the driver before he could move.

“Driver, get down!! Get down immediately!

“Master, I beg, rain de fall but the ground dey hard. I beg next time” the driver begged

“I say get down immediately!” The policeman was determined.

The delay annoyed the passengers who started, almost in unison to abuse the policeman.

“Papa Police, let us go! We haven’t got the whole day”. One passenger said

“You have been collecting bribes the whole day. Sure you must have enough” another passenger said

I was expecting a reaction from the policeman but he just smiled “You go, I’ll get you next time!” he said, and then turning to the passengers with a twinkle in his eye, continued “Fante people. What are you in a hurry for? Are you not just going to eat kenkey and sleep?”

We soon arrived in Cape Coast and got down only to realize my luggage was already packed into a taxi and a young driver waited to take me to my destination. Before he moved, however, I asked how much he was going to charge. He mentioned a ridiculous amount so I asked to get down. Seeing I was determined, he gave me the right fare and set off.
“Is there some economic crisis in Europe?” He enquired jovially. And this was before the credit crunch.

“Why?” I asked

“Because these days “buggers” are too tight-fisted. Sometime ago they never haggled over fares but now they are worse than the locals.” He was funny but I tried hard not to laugh. First it had been Atta Kofi, then the policeman and then this driver. I was determined not to condone this forced joviality of the guilty.

Papa Appiah