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