Gallery: World Cup Quarter-finalists
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Ghana are the only African country to have made it into the quarter finals. |
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Monday, 4 October 2010
NIGERIA IS ON RED ALERT
NIGERIA ON RED ALERT
By CAMERON DUODU
The Nigerian capital, Abuja is slowly growing into one of the more beautiful cities in Africa. Since a serious effort was made in the late 1980’s to actualise a decision -- taken in 1976 -- to make it Nigeria’s capital, Abuja has blossomed.
The transfer from Lagos finally occurred in 1991 and a conscious effort has been made to plant trees on the city’s sidewalks, while the skyline has been brightened with many impressive buildings.
One of the most graceful buildings is a huge mosque, whose gleaming, gold-tinted minaret can be seen miles away. And then, there is Aso Rock, headquarters of the Government, where a group of tastefully appointed villas house the offices and residence of the President.
To mark Nigeria’s 50th anniversary of independence, banners and bunting were to be seen everywhere. Eagle Square, scene of the huge parade that was the climax of the celebrations, took on a celebratory mood even before Independence Day itself, when President Goodluck Jonathan declared, at a joyous rally, that he would seek the nomination of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2011 presidential election.
Unfortunately for President Goodluck, his declaration has not been universally greeted with enthusiasm. It is no secret that powerful interests in the North of the country regard the President’s decision to contest the election as a ‘swindle’, in that in 2007, the presidency was “zoned” to a Northern politician for both that year’s election and the subsequent one to take place in 2011.
The “zoning” meant the PDP would field a Northerner as its candidate in both 2007 and 2011. The Northerner who benefited from the arrangement in 2007 was Umaru Yar’Adua, who, however, expired in May 2010 -- with one year of his term remaining to be served. Mr Goodluck Jonathan, as Vice-President, automatically assumed the presidency to complete Yar’Adua’s term. But once that term ends in May 2011, say the Northerners, it is a Northerner who should become president for the second half of the “zoning” arrangement, not the Southerner, Mr Goodluck.
Because Mr Goodluck Jonathan has repudiated this “zoning” arrangement, some Nigerians suspect that the bombs that exploded in Abuja on 1 October 2010, the death toll in which is now put at 14, were meant to convey a message to him. No evidence, however, has emerged linking any Northerner with the bombing, although the campaign director of ex-President Ibrahim Babangida's bid to win the PDP candidacy, Mr Raymond Dokpesi, chief executive of the television station, AIT, was detained for some hours on 4 October. Security sources told newsmen he was interrogated on "suspicious text messages" allegedly exchanged between him and some of the people arrested in connection with the bombing.
President Jonathan himself seems to believe that although an organisation called MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Delta) warned beforehand that it would create trouble for the Government on Independence Day, it was not MEND that carried out the explosions. According to the President, the explosions were the work of a “small, terrorist organisation” based outside Nigeria. However, the President has not fully explained his reason for exonerating MEND.
In fact, the President’s take on the explosions has confused the public. They are awaiting the results of the official police investigation into the explosions. But they fear that the police investigation may be prejudiced by the President’s statement on the bombing. And they can’t help asking: If MEND did not do it, why would it issue a warning five days before the event, that it would do it? And if MEND did do it, then why is the President accusing another organisation of having done it?
Meanwhile, the Nigerian police have published the photographs of two persons they say they want to interview. Apart from giving their names, the police did not state what organisation(s) the two men belong to, or in what way they may be connected with the bombing.
Another development is that the Nigerian State Security Service (SSS) has stated that it had arrested nine people after foiling “a larger plot to detonate at least six car bombs close to key government and security buildings in Abuja, days before the Independence Day attacks”. The State Security Service added that “those responsible had planned a larger attack for Wednesday Sept. 29,” in which “at least six car bombs” were to have been detonated “in the zone made up of the presidential villa, Parliament and the Supreme Court”.
The SSS further revealed that "all [the nine arrested persons] have direct links with Henry Okah… and some unscrupulous prominent elements in society".
The Henry Okah mentioned by the SSS is reputed to be one of the leaders of MEND. He was arrested in Angola three years ago and sent to Nigeria. However, he was released under an amnesty reached between the Government and MEND in August 2009, and went to live in South Africa.
Okah was arrested by the South African police and taken to court, after the Abuja explosions, and was remanded in custody till 14 October. The South African authorities had searched his house in Johannesburg five days before the Abuja bombings. But they found nothing and let him go, only to go back and arrest him as soon as the explosions occurred in Abuja on 1 October.
The three Northerners who are vying with President Jonathan for nomination as the PDP’s presidential candidate are ex-President Ibrahim Babangida, ex-Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, and Lieutenant-General (retired) Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, former National Security Adviser to both ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Goodluck Jonathan.
The Northern section of the PDP has set up a council of “elders” to examine all three candidates and choose one to be endorses the North’s choice for PDP candidate. It is understood that all three have agreed among themselves that each will “collapse” his campaign and support whoever the “elders” eventually choose.
It is not known exactly when the “elders” will announce their choice, but it would help President Jonathan a great deal if he could be made to face just one opponent in his own party. As the case is, he can expect attacks from any of them. Vice-President Atiku, for instance, has accused the President of unfairly using state resources to campaign for adoption as the PDP candidate.
And ex-President Babangida, for his part, has issued a statement sharply critical of President Jonathan’s handling of the nation’s security, following the bomb explosions.
Babangida said that what the President ought to have done immediately was to have ordered a high-powered investigation into the explosions.
Instead, “at different times, Nigerians have read different versions of the heinous crime, coming from government officials. While the President hastily exonerated the MEND, saying he knew those behind the act, another government official blamed the incident on one Mr. Henry Okah.”
Babangida charged: “It is unpresidential for Mr. President to quickly exonerate MEND, which had earlier claimed responsibility for the dastardly act, bearing in mind that the State Security Service had also reportedly received tip-offs about this dangerous act. Mr. President should have immediately ordered a high-powered investigation into the matter,” rather than alluding to terrorists’ attack to give the country a bad image in the international community.
In a swift reaction, the Director of Media and Publicity of the Jonathan Campaign Organisation, Mr Sully Abu, said Babangida was insincere in his comments.
“Trying to make political mileage from this sad event can only be the provenance of people whose staple is the violation of the lives and property of Nigerians. Why, if we may ask, was Babangida the only former head of state absent from the Independence Anniversary celebrations?” Mr Sully Abu asked.
One thing we can be sure of, then, is this: the political scene is going to be pretty rough in Abuja, from now on.
Friday, 1 October 2010
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
SPEAKER OF NAMIBIA'S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON BASIL DAVIDSON
Click this link to read an article by The Speaker of Namibia's National Assembly (pictured below)
This is the author:
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Monday, 6 September 2010
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Monday, 30 August 2010
how rotten it is to cheat at sports
HOW ROTTEN IT IS TO CHEAT AT SPORTS!
By CAMERON DUODU
Modern sport has become almost a religion to many people.
This is because politics is often crooked and dull. Education reaches a saturation point after which new information is not as welcome as when we were young. Sex ditto.
But sport is for ever exciting. When you are young, you go into it with gusto and try your best to excel in it. There is nothing like starting a race with eight other people and finishing ahead of all of them. Or starting a football match and scoring more goals than your opponents.
Even in later years, when you may not be physically capable of partaking in sport in any meaningful way, you can sit in your sofa in front of a television set and take part in sporting activities -- in your mind!
Sitting around and watching others do it can arouse as much passion in one as one used to experience when one was taking part in the events oneself. In a way, it is even better, for one can get a panoramic view of the whole event, whereas when one was participating, one’s view was limited to just one‘s own perspective of it.
Better still, when one is only taking part in one’s mind, one can be as creative as one likes and shout to indicate how good one would have been, had one been on the field.
“Shoot to the right!…Oh silly boy -- he shot to the left and sent it straight to an opponent. Look back! Look back! Oh --- he didn’t look back and he’s been felled. I told him to look back and he didn’t, and now he’s on the ground!”
Apart from football and athletics, one of the sports I enjoy most these days is cricket. It looks as if it is a lazy game -- long drawn out, with very little happening most of the time, and a lot of the same thing happening most of the time. The bowler bowls, the batsman tries to stop the ball from hitting his stumps; often the ball passes harmlessly by, and is harmlessly caught by the wicket-keeper. And the wicket-keeper gives the ball back to the bowler, who bowls again, past the batsman, to the wicketkeeper, and so it goes on and on and on.
If you do not understand the game, you will think that anyone who spends time watching it is potty, honest! But if you understand it, it is extremely breath-taking, for something unexpected --anything -- can happen at any moment. Instead of the ball bowled by the bowler sailing harmlessly past the batsman, it can whizz past his bat and hit one of the three stumps in front of which he stands.
There are two pieces of wood on top of the stumps and if these are dislodged when the ball hits the stumps, the batsman is OUT! He has been “bowled” and he goes away for another batsman to come and take his place.
Meanwhile, if the bowler has bowled six balls -- and all of them have been “good balls”, in that they have not been called by the umpire as being a “wide” or a “no-ball” -- then another bowler takes over and tries to do what the previous bowler was trying to do, namely, get the batsman “out”. In won’t go into “maidens” and “overs” at this time, but who knows, one day I shall get an opportunity to do so! Right now, I don’t want to satiate your poor mind.
Eleven players on each side play the game, and they are divided into batsmen and bowlers. All the bowlers have to bat as well, but not all the batsmen have to, or can, bowl. The aim of each side is to use its bowlers to get all the batsmen of the other side out.
Apart from being clean bowled, a batsman also goes out if a ball that has touched his bat is caught by any of the players of the opposing side, before it touches the ground. He is also out if the ball hits his leg and is thereby stopped from hitting the stumps. The umpire has to decide this
-- and it causes no end of controversy!
Now, all these things can happen after the ball has been bowled, and that is what makes cricket exciting. A catch can be made by one of the players scattered around the field (they are called fielders) or by the wicket-keeper, who stands right behind the batsman. Some of the catches are difficult because the ball travels very fast after the batsman has it hard. Some balls also go up very high and there is a special technique for catching them which, when executed perfectly, is very beautiful to watch.
So a lot of different skills are deployed in cricket, and many of these skills are not found in games like football or hockey, so it is the complexity of cricket which makes it specially appreciated by its followers.
Because of the peculiar skills required of its players, good cricketers are almost worshipped by their fans. If you have ever seen a guy called Viv Richards -- for example -- bat for the West Indies; or Brian Lara (also a batsman of the West Indies); Shane Warne (Australia) and Muttai Mutalitharan (Sri Lara) spin the ball whilst bowling; or Curtley Ambrose (West Indies) or Malcolm Marshall (West Indies) or Shoaib Akhtar (Pakistan) bowl the ball at about 100 mph and get excellent batsmen out -- the thrill is only slightly less than when you see Ussain Bolt leaving the field behind after only ten paces, in a 100-meter race.
So imagine the anger cricket fans have been feeling, on hearing that Mohammed Amir, a young Pakistani bowler, who took six wickets at Lord’s cricket ground in London last Friday in a match against England, cheated during the game. A newspaper called The News of The World managed to get a middleman to offer a huge sum of money, £150,000, to Amir to bowl four “no-balls” at certain stages during the match against England.
He did play the no-balls. The payback was that if anyone had betted that those no-balls would occur at those particular times during the match and they did, he could have made a fortune. And, apparently, such complex bets are made in East Asia frequently -- mostly underground -- during cricket matches.
Now, in the current case, the no-balls did not affect the match. Pakistan was losing and would have lost anyway, whether the no-balls were played or not. But the big question is: if a Pakistani player could be induced to take money to play a “no-ball”, what other things could he -- or indeed the whole team do -- to satisfy betters during a match? Could they ”throw” a whole match? Could good batsmen deliberately get themselves “out” whilst building up a good innings for their team? Could bowlers deliberately bowl wildly and allow the opposing batsmen to obtain a lot of runs?
The issue has dealt a very big blow indeed at international cricket. There have been other instances of corruption in cricket before, the most notable being the confession by the captain of South Africa, Hansie Cronje, in 2000, that he took a large sum of money from bookmakers in exchange for information about a match in which he was playing.
The International Cricket Council has been making efforts to stamp out corruption from the game since then, but apparently, it hasn’t yet succeeded.
I am enraged by this incident because it couldn’t have come at a worse moment for Pakistan. The country is fast disappearing under water, after a huge flood caused by the monsoon rains. All that could cheer Pakistanis up was the excellent performance of their cricket team against England. Now, that too has been snatched from them.
I am also annoyed at The News Of The World, for if it had not entrapped the young player, he would not have fallen victim to corruption. To have deliberately set out to ensnare a vulnerable young man whose mind would have been on his flooded home back in Pakistan, with huge wads of easy money, was particularly heartless of the paper. What he did cannot be excused, but there is always a giver before there is a taker.
The only positive thing that can come out of the sad episode is that the International Cricket Council will redouble its efforts to stamp out corruption from the game, so that we can full-heartedly believe that the results we see in matches are genuine results.
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
REVISITING CONFLICT RESOLUTION
WE MUST REVISIT ASPECTS OF OUR TRADITIONAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION MECHANISMS
The Ghanaian Times Tuesday August 24, 2010
By Cameron Duodu
Disputes between the executive and the judiciary are nothing new. But they should be mediated within the confines of orderly, rational discourse, and not be allowed to descend into emotional name-calling, threats, or ignorant boasts meant to “show where power lies.”
When the Chairman of the NDC boasted that his party would deal with the judiciary, because a judge had given a judgement with which he disagreed, had he read the parts of the Constitution that relate to the appointment and removal of judges?
Does the NDC command the sort of majority in Parliament that could empower it to remove a judge?
When NDC followers poured abuse on their own Attorney-General, because she had lost a case, did they really understand what the Attorney-General’s position is, within the Government?
The Attorney-General presides over a department which assists her to advise the Cabinet on legal matters -- advice that might be accepted or rejected. That same department is charged with taking cases to court. When it does so, it always knows that it might win or lose. That is because the law is a matter of interpretation, and people can naturally interpret words -- which in reality, what laws are - differently.
In a court, it is assumed the interpretation is done without malice or bias, and lawyers, who can themselves become judges, must be extremely sure of that they’ve got watertight evidence, if they accuse judges of malice or bias.
Indeed, Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu is being accused by NDC members in precisely the same manner that Nana Akufo Addo was pilloried by NPP supporters, when he was Attorney-General. But when he was transferred to the Foreign Office, did the NPP stop losing cases? Even if the losses stopped, it was probably because lessons had been learnt about what to take to court, and how.
In my day, I have seen other Attorney-Generals suffer at the hands of their own supporters. Bashir Kwaw Swanzy, Kwame Nkrumah’s brilliant Cambridge-educated AG, was harried after he had lost the treason case against Tawia Adamafio and others in 1963.
So legislation was passed in Parliament, empowering the President to set aside a judgement of the superior court of judicature!
This was so unusual that C L R James, a school-mate of George Padmore’s and a fervent Nkrumah supporter, was scandalised and broke off relations with Nkrumah after Nkrumah had done it. Of course, Kwaw Swanzy’s name will always be associated with Dr Nkrumah’s dismissal of the highest judges of the land.
I also remember how Mr N Y B Adade, Attorney-General for the Progress Party Government, was vilified a great deal by his own side during the emotive litigations in 1970 over the Apollo 568 dismissals. He was largely blamed for Prime Minister Busia’s “No Court” speech, in which Busia claimed that “No court” could force his Government to employ people it did not want to employ in the public services.
A can of worms was opened by that case when, perhaps out of frustration, Mr Adade accused the Acting Chief Justice, Mr Justice Azu Crabbe, of showing bias on behalf of one of the litigants because Crabbe was somehow related to the litigant. Azu Crabbe, in turn, told me in an interview, as editor of the Daily Graphic that Mr Adade was also related to someone concerned in the case. My report of the interview did not hide my exasperation at the way lawyers sometimes behaved towards each other.
What all this shows is that it is pointless to set the judiciary against the executive because of court decisions. The Attorney-General’s department is composed of lawyers. The judiciary, too, is composed of lawyers. Why can’t they conduct cases in the manner lawyers agreed upon, among themselves, for generations? Didn’t they all study for and pass the same professional examinations?
The country at large has agreed to live under a system called the rule of law. The supreme law is the Constitution. And the Constitution delineates the powers and functions of both executive and the judiciary in quite a precise manner. No-one can change that delineation without a referendum.
And I don’t think the NDC, which came to power with a wafer-thin majority, is about to call a referendum to redefine the functions of the judiciary vis-à-vis the executive, is it?
So it is up to all of us, led by our lawyers (both on the bench and at the bar) to learn to live within the confines of our own Constitution.
When I see how emotional people get over court cases, I have to restrain myself from laughing. For we have deliberately thrown out all our own traditional conflict resolution processes, and adopted, instead, both the party-political system of government, which is adversarial, and a judicial system, which is also adversarial.
In an adversarial system, someone always wins and someone else always loses. You go to court hoping your opponent will lose. And if he does lose, you are happy. But if, on the contrary, you happen to be the loser, then you get mad. Is that a fair, or sensible state of affairs?
Maybe to stop being so frustrated, we should revisit some the principles that underlay our traditional system of justice. I don’t mean the system -- which has gone beyond its sell-by date -- but the ideas that lay behind the system.
I remember that in our town, when the Queen Mother sat down to settle cases brought before her, she would be surrounded by all the elders of the town. Each elder represented a street in the town, so no-one could come to court without having someone amongst the elders who had his or her interests at heart.
The complainant would then be called to state his or her case. This was done by the complainant in person -- not through an impersonal presentation by someone else, that is, a lawyer. So the elders could watch the person‘s demeanour all the time.
If he or she stumbled over an aspect of the case, the elders made a mental note of it. If he or she got emotional or even broke down, in the course of the presentation, they would comfort him or her with soothing words, usually a proverb full of meaning.
They would then ask the complainant whether he or she had any witnesses to support hid/her case. And they would ask the witness questions. Most of the questions would be meant to tease out the real truth and expose any untruths contained in the well-rehearsed presentation earlier placed before them by the complainant.
Then, they would go through the whole process again with the person complained against. They would then retire to a secluded place in the palace to “consult the old woman”. This was a mythical old woman who had lived so long that she could not be shown top the public, and who knew everything that there was to know about life. No member of the public ever got to know what was sad during the consultation.
After they had consulted to their fill and reached agreement, they would come back with a verdict. This was usually so sagacious that it was almost always accepted by both parties. The parties would accept it because the experience of standing before elders they respected, and being allowed to tell everything like it was, would have had a therapeutic effect on them and relieved much of the pain that made go to court in the first place.
Interestingly, the party found “guilty” was not punished, as such, but asked to pay something to “conciliate” the person wronged. This “conciliation”, known as mpata, was not the same as a “compensation” or a “fine”. It was much more subtle than that -- it was meant to address the litigants’ emotional needs by actually making them feel reconciled one to the other. Sometimes, after the mpata had been accepted, the litigants would be made to embrace each other, to cheering by members of the public.
Indeed, when the mpata was proposed, whoever was to receive it (the mpata) was deliberately asked whether he or she would accept it. Once it was accepted, the two people were meant to live together, henceforth, in harmony in the same village.
The litigant could refuse the mpata and appeal to the Chief of the town. But that would almost always be a pointless effort, inasmuch as the Queen Mother and her most important elders would also sit in with the Chief, and unless a really strong new case was presented, the same verdict would prevail as in the Queen Mother’s court.
The emphasis on conciliation was purposely meant to ensure that should there be an emergency in the town -- such as a war -- the level of co-operation expected from the populace to enable them to ward off the external danger, would not be jeopardised by the ill-feeling between members of the group about to be attacked. Our history is full of mighty states weakened by unsettled disputes: the Ashanti empire weakened considerably after the Dwaben people had deserted it and founded New Juaben (Koforidua) further south. A dispute with Bekwai also weakened the Ashanti campaign against the British during the Yaa Asantewaa war. So if you do not know history, you might think that there are too many “disputes” amongst us that waste a lot of time. The objective is to ensure that true harmony exists amongst our people. Of course, that desire for harmony can be abused by a selfish
Desire to grab other people’s property or steal stools from their true owners.
Of course, magistrates’ courts and superior courts of judicature were brought in by the British, either to totally negate our traditional system, or to lessen their importance. So now we have this adversarial system of “you win, I lose; you lose, I win.”
Almost no attempt is made at reconciliation under our current system, although mediation processes are possible within it. Anyway, by the time a loser has paid the winner’s “costs”, in addition ton his/her own counsel’s fees, his or her anger would have doubly heightened and reconciliation would be virtually impossible.
So we now live in a continually adversarial mode: we fight each other at elections; we fight each other over legislation in Parliament; and we fight each other over legal and constitutional issues in the courts.
Can our frail society, in which so many people go to bed hungry every day; sick people are unable to receive adequate medical treatment; people whose homes are destroyed by floods receive very little assistance; while stupid “people of influence” do not scruple to flaunt their conspicuous wealth before all and sundry, endure so much adversarial squabbling and survive?
I remember the shock with which I saw the pictures of Elizabeth Ohene’s brother, who had been brutally assaulted at a polling station in the Volta Region, during the election in 2008. And only last Sunday, a young friend of mine recalled the fear that engulfed him in Accra, as he ran away from his office, in the last hours before the 2008 election result was declared, on hearing that office after office after office was closing for the day? This was after some irresponsible FM stations had carried some false reports that incited people to converge on the Electoral Commission offices, armed with cutlasses and cudgels.
We are definitely sitting on a time-bomb, with the fuse in the hands of FM stations, some of which are only interested in engendering controversy, so that advertisers would consider them as popular stations whose services would yield dividends if utilised. If we don’t find ingenious ways to defuse the situation and continue to prime the time-bomb with unnecessary rantings about legal matters which only few of us really understand, it will explode beneath us.
The Kenyans sat down unaware of where their society was at, until their time-bomb exploded, even though they knew of what had happened in Rwanda. In both countries, loud-mouthed semi-literates were left unchecked to stoke the fires of national doom.
In Ghana, our history is full of useful lessons. Let us then revisit that history -- to learn useful lessons from it. Otherwise we shall condemn ourselves to relive the worst parts of that history.
Sunday, 22 August 2010
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Saturday, 24 July 2010
Friday, 23 July 2010
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Thursday, 15 July 2010
THANKS, SOUTH AFRICA by CAMERON DUODU
The Johannesburg Sunday TimesThanks, SA, for giving us your best
Jul 11, 2010 12:00 AM | By CAMERON DUODU
So a dirty foul by Uruguayan player Luis Suarez prevented Ghana from going forth into the World Cup semifinals.
We in the rest of Africa have a vested interest in your ability
RELATED ARTICLES
Sure, all Africa's hopes in the tournament died with Ghana's exit.
But who could have foretold that South Africans - some of whom had burnt other Africans alive in 2008 - would suddenly be cheering their hearts out for the players of another African country?
Xenophobia, where is thy sting, then?
And what happened to the crimes that the world's media repeatedly assured us would make South Africa rue the day she bid for the World Cup?
Okay, it's early days. Yes, I've read of the rumours that the xenophobia warriors are biding their time, and may still unleash their evil violence on fellow Africans. Again.
Nevertheless, I wish to thank the people of South Africa who were kind enough to re-christen the players of Ghana as "Bafana-Ba-Ghana".
I heard the thousands of vuvuzelas play in unison, willing Ghana to win the crucial match against Uruguay.
I saw on television, the way many South Africans had donned Ghana's colours.
I saw the way the Black Stars were mobbed when they visited Nelson Mandela and when they paid their respects to his ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
Such scenes went around the world. They told everyone that the cynics who believe African unity is skin-deep are wrong.
Great things are sometimes revealed by small things. There were tears in the eyes of many a Ghanaian when the love that was exhibited towards our team - and our country - became so indubitably expressed by South Africans.
The World Cup came. And it now goes the way of history.
But not before it showed the world that Africa is one continent with one people, irrespective of the fact that we have so many different languages, cultures and economic backgrounds.
Who put it in the mind of a South African cartoonist to paint Ghana's flag, with the black star in the middle of it changed into the map of Africa?
Who told the little kid in the film at http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/video/2010/jul/05/world-cup-2010-south-africa-ghana to say, "I love you Ghanaians, too much"?
These things must crystallise a few things for the government of South Africa, namely: you have earned a great deal of respect - and goodwill - from the World Cup. You couldn't have bought it if you had paid foreign advertisers R10-million on a campaign of "re-branding".
Use that goodwill, please. Do not allow it to be dissipated into nothing. And the way you can make it take root is to invest hugely in the needs of your people.
Redouble your efforts to provide affordable housing to the poor.
Do not consider it "inflationary" - as the economists will claim - if you pour money into providing the townships with clean water, electricity, good roads and communications facilities.
Already, your health services are so good that an industry called "health tourism" has sprouted in your country. Make sure the good health facilities are also enjoyed by all the people. It is their labour, after all, that paid for the good facilities that the "health tourists" come to enjoy.
When you refocus the attention of your entire government into providing these things, you will ensure that the legacy of the 2010 Fifa World Cup is a true and lasting one.
We in the rest of Africa have a vested interest in your ability to achieve these objectives. We know that xenophobia cannot find a place in the hearts of a populace whose basic needs are not left to the whims of market forces, but in the philosophy that has always been inherent in the struggle for freedom in South Africa, namely "the welfare of the people is the supreme law".
Thank you and good luck, dear South Africa.
- Duodu is a Ghanaian born journalist and author now based in the United Kingdom.
Friday, 9 July 2010
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Monday, 5 July 2010
WHY, OH WHY, URUGUAY?
By CAMERON DUODU
To cry is the lot of all mankind
And the eyes that shine in joyous delight today
Are doomed ere long to brim over,
As the welling tears overflow
And we moan: “Woe is today!
Woe is today!
Woe is today!
I wonder what R M Ballantyne would make of that. I first heard his “To part is the lot of all mankind” from the lips of a friend, now departed, called Kwame Asiedu Acheampong, at Kyebi Government School. Kwame recited Ballantyne with great feeling, and when he said the words, “When the quivering lips pronounce the word, farewell,” he made his voice convey the idea of quivering lips -- so much so that one could actually feel oneself saying “farewell” to one’s friends. What an actor Kwame would have been, had the opportunity arisen for him.
It did once, briefly: when I was cast in a classroom play as Pythias to his Damon in an adaptation of The History of Damon and Pythias by Valerius Maximus. Teachers were erudite men and women then: ours was called Kofi Awuah Peasah, from Old Tafo, and I owe almost all my love of English literature to him. To have heard him declaim, “Frailty! Thy name is woman!” would have made one think that William Shakespeare was born on the very banks of the Birem River, and was there, to record the travails of the people of Tafo, when, as they believe, their ancestors emerged from the bottom of the River.
“Woe is today?” Why do I say that?
Did not the whole world see that Ghana had beaten Uruguay and should be the one to advance into the semi-finals of the 2010 World Cup?
Was not the whole of the African continent afflicted with excruciating pain, when Uruguay’s Luis Suarez used his hands to push back a ball that had entered the Uruguayan goal?
Red card, penalty -- was that Africa wanted? No! Justice demanded that the goal be awarded so that Ghana would the winner -- the first African country ever to cross the semi-final barrier!
Uruguay cheated. Our missed penalty was just a red herring.
Uruguay cheated -- and benefited from cheating.
Nobody on the African continent will ever forget that act of infamy. Especially after they have read these defiant words of the cheat, Luis Suarez.
“The Hand of God now belongs to me”, Suarez said after the match.
“Mine is the real Hand Of God,” he repeated. “I made the best save of the tournament. Sometimes in training, I play as a goalkeeper so it was worth it…. When they missed the penalty, I thought 'It is a miracle and we are alive in the tournament'.”
Sometimes in training, “I play as a goalkeeper”, Suarez said. The question is: Does FIFA think it acceptable that a team should field two goalkeepers in a match?
FIFA’s rules were made by men, and are not immutable. This particularly transparent bit of cheating by Suarez is a warning to FIFA that it is in danger of creating a very bad precedent, which will be followed by a whole population of football player-cynics, who will do everything in their power not to lose a match. Isn’t one Maradona enough? Now. We’ve also got a Suarez! Cheats will be “Suarezing all over the place,” mark my words.
As could be expected, the Internet is awash with analyses of what happened to the Ghana Black Stars on Friday 2 July 2010.
The writer whose views are most cogently argued is Mr Solomon Amanzulley Akessey of Grinnell College, USA.
He notes that the World Cup in South Africa “has raised a long list of ethical issues against the beautiful game” that “FIFA must address if the game is to remain beautiful.” He thinks the most pressing of these are “deliberate hand ball fouls”, like the one that denied Ghana the chance of qualifying to the Semi-Finals.
“If FIFA refuses to look into this problem, then the message it seeks to send is that cheating , however unethical and immoral, is useful and players can and should cheat to win.
“Uruguay clearly did it [on Friday 2 July 2010]. Suarez, being the last defender on the line, deliberately arrogated the privileges of the goal-keeper to himself and handled the ball. Had he not handled the ball, it is pretty obvious that [Ghana] would have scored the goal... The rules were clear and the referee played fair and promptly showed him the red card and awarded a penalty to Ghana.
“But therein lay the problem. When a goal has clearly been denied in such an illegal way, it is simply unconscionable for FIFA to try to solve the problem in a way that does not punish the opposing team as they deserve, but rather rewards them.
“If a player is the last man on the line and he handles the ball, when he is not the goal-keeper, then it should be an automatic goal… For if a penalty is awarded, the pressure alone could make the [penalty] taker miss the shot, in which case the player who committed the foul would have been justified in committing it. And we saw [that happen] when Suarez started jumping up and down, when Asamoah Gyan missed the penalty.”
If you ask me -- and I don’t want to generalise -- it is not surprising, however, that Ghana was so blatantly cheated by a Latin American country. In Latin America, some people take football fanaticism to an almost religious level.
The most notorious incident of non-football football occurred in 1969 in Latin America when, during a series of World Cup qualification matches between El Salvador and Honduras, feelings were aroused to such an extent that riots occurred, followed by a “Football War” (known locally as La guerra del fútbol) between the two countries. It lasted for 100 hours or four days, during which 2,000 people were killed.
If you want to look it up, it is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_war
It was also trouble in stadiums in Latin America that made it necessary for moats to be built in some stadiums to prevent the football fans from invading the pitch and trying to lay hands on referees who have angered them. In one instance, a crowd surrounded a referee and tried to strangle him. And many of my readers will be familiar with the story of Andres Escobar, the Colombian player who was shot and killed after an own goal scored by him had caused Colombia to lose 2-1 to the United States in a Word Cup match in June 1994.
The world desperately needs protection from those who want to cheat in order to advance in the World Cup. Now that the FIFA president, Mr Sepp Blatter, has accepted the principle of using technology to assist referees in decision-making, all manner of cheating should be eliminated so that the world can enjoy football without any reservations. What is the point of leaving games to be decided by non-offside offsides; goals-not-given when the ball has clearly crossed the line; free kicks given as a result of play-acting on the field; etcetera etcetera, when 21st technology can help to eliminate all doubts from the minds of referees when they are making decisions?
The most amazing thing that technology has brought into cricket is to eliminate cheating. When the cricket ball hits the edge of a bat so faintly that it is difficult for the umpire to detect whether the ball had touched the bat or not, an infra-red video can show whether the ball did in fact hit the bat.
So we live in a world that has made incredible advances in technology. It is only our human intelligence that is lagging behind. I am sure that if Mr Blatter were walk in the streets of Soweto today, he’d hear someone say, “This is the man whose stupid organisation threw out the last African country from the World Cup, when it was only cheated of victory because there were two goalkeepers playing for its opponent, Uruguay.”
Everyone I know says “our boys did us proud”. The cheating they suffered will not be in vain, if it galvanises FIFA into action, to eliminate once and for all, such idiocies from thrilling football matches.
Thursday, 1 July 2010
THE BOYS WHO TOOK GHANA TO THE QUARTER-FINALS OF WORLD CUP 2010
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
HOW GOOD COMMUNAL EUPHORIA TASTES! By CAMERON DUODU
QUOTE: “Uruguay are a good team. But we are good too. We are capable of beating Uruguay. We are ready to live the ultimate dream." UNQUOTE -- Samuel Inkoom
That is the spirit, Sam. The victory over the US has come and gone. Now, our eyes must be on Uruguay.
They are not exactly second-class material. They beat South Korea 2-1,t Mexico 1-0, South Africa 3-0 and drew 0-0 with France.
I sighed after viewing those stats. The only comforting thing to find in them is the victory of Uruguay over South Africa.
Comforting?
Yes, in an ironic sense. That victory will guarantee Ghana a superior vuvuzela-decibel level when we play Uruguay. That is: if anyone can actually distinguish between whom the vuvuzelas are cheering, and whom they are trying to jinx.
It doesn’t really matter. The South Africans will know whom they are supporting. They would know that they are supporting Ghana, even if the Uruguayans had not whupped them 3-0.
Let Ghana beat Uruguay and our name will be written all over South African hearts for ever.
In fact, the process of Ghana becoming an icon in South Africa has already begun. The Washington Post reports that a cartoonist of the Johannesburg Times newspaper, Jerm, has, in tribute to Ghana as the only African country left to try and ensure that Africa stays in the tournament, redrawn Ghana’s flag, replacing the black star in the centre with -- a black map of Africa!
What a brilliant idea -- we are being told through football that indeed, we can be a United States of Africa. It is beautiful: you can see the new flag here on the Internet:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/soccerinsider/
Indeed, were Uruguay to be able to drive Africa out of the 2010 World Cup tournament by beating Ghana, Uruguay’s name would become associated with what the South Africans call muti (malignant juju or African magic) for ever.
So a lot hangs on our match with Uruguay. Can home-grown ‘African electronics’, operating on a combined wavelength radiating from west to south on the African continent, outwit its Latin American counterpart -- or rather -- rival? That is the question! You think there are no 'boundaries' in cyberspace? You wait. Pity Okomfo Anokye wasn’t able to resurrect himself before cyberspace was invented!
But not to worry. We have something which wasn’t given to us by metaphysics in any shape or form -- the communal euphoria that our victory over the United States has transmitted into the soul of every Ghanaian alive. Especially the Black Star players.
The ‘viral’ nature that this euphoria has assumed on the Internet is breath-taking. Yet it is not as if we haven’t beaten the US before -- true, we gave them an identical walloping in the 2006 World Cup. But this year’s match had as much drama in it as if it were a contest between an unknown ‘Asteroids Eleven’ and a mystery opponent extruded by the Icelandic Volcano known as Eyjafjallajokull!
One pre-match report, no doubt calculated to strike fear into every Ghanaian, emphasised that “the Americans have come back twice in the tournament, to draw against England and Slovenia, and scored deep into injury time, against Algeria to win their group, ahead of England.” Whereas Ghana had actually been beaten (1-0 by Germany) and had drawn 1-1 with Australia, with its 1-0 victory over Serbia as Ghana's only notable achievement in the tournament.
And yet come the day and what do we see? The stats are shown to be irrelevant. Ghana’s forwards who, in earlier games, had appeared not to know how to shoot, have suddenly found their feet. First, Kevin-Prince Boateng works his solo magic past several Americans, and instead of passing the ball, releases a shot through the legs of the Americans opposing him. And in it goes -- sroh!
Yieeeeeeeeh! We shout loudly enough to burst our lungs.
But then, the Americans equalise with a penalty (which, as usual, creates controversy amongst us, the arm-chair players.) Anyway, they score. It is one-one.
And the feared words come into use again -- what we call “extra time” and the Americans call “overtime”. Oh no! Not penalties? The awesome word hangs over the proceedings like smog over a modern industrial city.
Play goes on. One can sense that this is the stage at which the men are separated from the boys. This is when men die fighting: ‘aduru mmarima wuo so!’ (as the Akans say).
We go forward and go forward. Nothing happens. Every Ghanaian fears the match will end in a penalty shootout, for the Americans match us in every respect, and with our poor shooting record, we aren‘t exactly expecting anything by way of a remarkable strike from one of our forwards. Boateng, our sole cannon-ball-footed genius, goes off injured anyway.
But then, penalty-specialist Asamoah Gyan gets the ball. He is tackled. He nearly falls over, but manages to right himself and stay half-erect. He goes forward, but has clearly lost his balance. However, instead of succumbing to all these assaults, or even waiting to straighten himself up properly, he shoots from his half-dangling position. Not only does he shoot -- the shot that comes from his left foot is a sputnik shot powered by the thrust of a multi-headed rocket. And in it goes -- wroh!
The vuvuzelas beep out. Ghanaians yell, shout and jump. We’ve done it, it seems. YIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Johannesburg goes wild. Accra goes mad. Africa -- the whole of Africa -- cheers and cheers and cheers-- from Cape to Cairo; from Bissau to Mombasa.
But there is one small detail we’ve all overlooked -- we have the clock to worry about. Five minutes to full time. Ohhhh! Go faster, won’t you, you damned clock? We count the seconds. We count the minutes. The Americans are playing their hearts out. And we know they are “come-back” specialists.
But for once, it is us that Lady Luck favours. We hold them off till the referee’s whistle blows full time.
And now, an amazing calm descends on our spirits. We have really done it. We realise the enormity of this event. It is not just a victory. It is a victory that was not expected. And that is why it is so much more sweeter -- if one may invoke poetic licence.
Let me not talk any more, lest I over-brag.
Let the opposition do the talking for me. The New York Times thinks it was the youthfulness of our players that did it for us. Asamoah Gyan’s shot, it said, “was the shot of a younger, stronger, faster man. The shot that finished America and liberated the hope all Africans can share.”
The paper further reported that “In a television studio, the former Liberian striker. George Weah, the only African player ever to win FIFA’s ‘World Player of the Year’ honour, was possibly a shade too excited when he suggested that ‘Ghana is a team that can win this World Cup.’ But Weah always did think the improbable. He once scored a goal for A.C. Milan by dribbling the ball past seven men of Verona in one mazy run. Africans of a free spirit may not know their limitations.”
Well now, suppose I had written that? You see why our elders say that “a good thing sells itself?” If you do it and it is good, even the most unwilling observer will give credit where credit is due.
I like this bit and so I shall repeat it: “Africans of a free spirit may not know their limitations!”
An absolutely profound observation. Didn’t our own Dr Kwegyir Aggrey say something about “nothing but the best” being good enough for Africa?
Asamoah Gyan’s winning goal was not only improbable; it was impossible, as far as his physical situation of the time he shot the ball into the American net was concerned. The shot came from his imagination, which took him back to his childhood, when he used to play on hard, gravelly ground, on which he tried all manner of tricks to make him the envy of all his playmates, and the darling of the watching damsels. It was a “gutter-to-gutter” shot -- you can’t shoot a football in that position if you have never played shabo-shabo or taken part in Saturday morning practice in the dust on the outskirts of Maamobi or Mallam or its equivalent somewhere in rural Ghana. It will be discussed and discussed and imitated and -- bettered!
That is what our foreign coach may not always appreciate. Yes, our boys should be tight in defence and technically proficient in ensuring that we do not allow goals to go in.
But after all, football is a game to be enjoyed. And for it to be properly enjoyed, it must produce spectacular, imaginative goals. I am sure that if Gyan’s goal had not liberated George Weah’s mind, Weah would not have remarked that 'Ghana
can win the World Cup.' And if George Weah had not liberated the mind of the New York Times reporter two or so decades ago, he wouldn’t have taken any notice of what George Weah said, but dismissed it as the hyperbolic rhetoric of an unrealistic political wannabe.
But the guy had seen Weah do the seemingly impossible once. Dribble everyone in his path, from his own side of the pitch, straight on and on and on and on and on -- past seven men till he shot straight into the net and scored.
Yes -- it can be done.
So do it Black Stars.
Do win the World Cup for Africa on African soil.
Go there and get rid of Uruguay. To begin with.
And then we shall see.
Remember -- Ghana did beat the soccer wizards, Brazil in the Under-20 World Cup. It is the youth who grow up to achieve the goals of MEN.
YOU can do it!
So go out there and do it.
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