Monday 31 May 2010
Sunday 30 May 2010
Marion Jones: Is Back! -- As a Basketball Player!
Oh Marion Jones! How many people she let down!
Hmmm -- you can't love a person one moment and fail to wish her well just because she's fallen on hard times. due to bad associations.
Best of luck to her in her search for rehbilitation! --- Cameron
Marion Jones: 'I'm a sucker for a challenge' | Interview | Sport | The Observer
Nelson Mandela: the first call to arms - Telegraph
Nelson Mandela: the first call to arms
Fifty years ago South Africa was at boiling point, its black population brutally oppressed by the apartheid regime. Into this maelstrom stepped Brian Widlake, a young reporter for ITN, who here tells of how he got the ultimate scoop – an explosive interview with Nelson Mandela, the last before his imprisonment on Robben Island
Published: 11:30PM BST 28 May 2010
Nelson Mandela in the early 1960s Photo: AFP/GETTY
When Eugene Terreblanche was murdered in South Africa last month the remaining vestige of the Herstigte Party’s desperate ambition to maintain white rule in the country died with him. The great white supremacist threatened civil war in the 1980s if President FW de Klerk handed power to Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress. A compelling orator on his day, he was a militant Boer to the end.
But 50 years ago, when South Africa celebrated its first Republic Day, the boot was on the other foot – and firmly on the throats of black Africans. Hendrik Verwoerd and his National Government had institutionalised apartheid, or 'separate development’ as the prime minister liked to call it. And he did it by the gun, torture and beatings. In 1960 the police shot dead 67 black Africans at Sharpeville. Paranoia led to bans on political parties, among them the ANC, whose de facto leader was Nelson Mandela. He was already working underground, the most wanted man in South Africa, but a series of unlikely events led me to conduct the first and last television interview with him before his imprisonment (for 27 years) on Robben Island.
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The overwhelming emotion in South Africa at that time was fear. However beautiful the land, its politics ran on tramlines and their implementation was brutal. There was generally a treason trial on the go (treason, and therefore communism, topped the list of crimes against the state in Dr Verwoerd’s government). There were endless shootings, torture, beatings and bannings by the security forces, many for unspecified reasons, though 'suspicion’ was generally good enough.
As new laws became ever more aggressively anti-black, so human rights became a rapidly receding dream. To Nelson Mandela, the announcement of a Republic Day was a call to action. Political protest by the ANC had always been strictly limited to non-violent or 'peaceful’ demonstration. Mandela was now proposing something more ambitious and dangerous: a three-day national strike of all black workers to culminate on the date of the first Republic Day itself, May 31. It was a tall order. The government’s immediate response was to mobilise the army, the police and tanks in huge numbers and to arm civilians. In effect, the country was in a state of national emergency.
By this time Mandela was a well-known figure. Tall, well built and a good amateur boxer, he had a light, wispy beard and an unashamed vanity paraded by immaculate tailoring. He was a charismatic man who commanded attention, and fugitive status added to his glamour. Banned from political work and unable to pursue the legal profession for which he was qualified, he flitted from safe house to safe house too often, giving the impression he was indifferent to risk. Random visits to political leaders and organisations in other African countries were criticised by his own national executive, who wanted Mandela and other key figures to work exclusively out of sight and mind.
Mandela’s favourite undercover base was a small hut among the outbuildings at Lilliesleaf Farm in the Rivonia suburb of Johannesburg. The farm had been bought by the Communist Party and welcomed political refugees and activists into the bosom of a white, Jewish middle-class family who used it as their home. Mandela recalled later that Lilliesleaf 'reminded me of the happiest days of my life, my days of childhood’. (The farm eventually fell to ruin but not before a tip-off that led to a police raid of immense political importance. The police netted three of the ANC’s biggest fish: Walter Sisulu, a key mentor of Mandela’s; Ahmed Kathrada, an Indian communist; and Govan Mbeki, a weighty, theoretical Marxist and father to Thabo. All were arrested and, after the famous Rivonia Trial, during which police produced incriminating papers that Mandela had left in the hut, were convicted of treason for their plot to overthrow the government.)
Much of that period of black resistance took place in cities and townships. But Mandela was a country boy – he did not come to Johannesburg until he was 22 – and deeply conscious and proud of his tribal heritage and of the 'royal’ blood in his veins. He learnt the rudiments of leadership by sitting at the feet of the tribal elders. Tribal life and customs were subject to rules and behaviour derived from social cohesion and unity. They became embedded in his psyche.
But by the early 1960s the country boy was in his Johannesburg bunker urging all black African workers to down tools for three days. The government, though, had introduced zero-tolerance laws against strikes, and the penalties were severe. Moreover, nothing, not even a mass walkout, would prevent the National Party’s celebration of Republic Day.
This is where my story begins. I was with Independent Television News at the time. Formed in 1955, ITN was the news arm of Independent Television. News was kept on a very tight rein and with absurdly low budgets, a problem exacerbated by the unions, which insisted that film crews and reporters flew first class and slept five-star.
But South Africa’s first Republic Day and the rumours of a Mandela- instigated national strike which was bound to bring blood to the streets were obviously newsworthy and demanded an ITN presence on the ground, so money was found to send me and Len Dudley (my 'silent’ cameraman, as they were known in the days before audio and vision were synchronised). With a cheap freelance sound and lighting crew from Rhodesia and precious little to go on – no interviews secured, no locations scouted, no telephone numbers to work with, no permits – we were dispatched to the airport.
Len and I arrived in Johannesburg in time for a late dinner and a quick chat with the Rhodesian crew led by Klaus Krieger, an unflappable German. He had bad news: a permit to film anywhere in South Africa was mandatory and granted only by magistrates. It was midnight, so a permit was out of the question. As I was expected to lead ITN’s main news bulletin with a report on the opening day of the strike, this was a serious problem. I had planned to open with a piece to camera followed by vox pops with striking African workers. I decided to go for it and risk the consequences. In the lobby I ran into Ernie Christie, a cameraman working for the BBC, who lived in Johannesburg. 'What are you going to do?’ he asked. 'Vox-pop the Africans,’ I said, 'without a permit to do so.’
The vox pop was the standard for taking the temperature of people in the street – a sort of crude opinion poll favoured by reporters and editors working against a deadline. 'Be careful, Brian, they’ll get you under the Suppression of Communism Act,’ Ernie warned. 'It’s a catch-all law.’ The country was at fever pitch and so too the police, who sensed danger in every foreign face. I didn’t sleep that night.
At seven the following morning we set up the camera in a quiet square, well away from the prying eyes of passers-by and motorists. The sound camera was on a tripod with a 10-minute magazine of film and a spare. The sound recordist was plugged in. Len Dudley cruised around searching for action. Eventually an African emerged from an alleyway and stopped some 30 yards away to examine us. He was very curious. That’s a crucial element in filming, whether you are shooting lions or humans – get them interested. As he edged towards us, there were signs of more activity. A dozen more Africans emerged showing equal interest. They were not at work; indeed they were on strike – just the people I wanted.
We reckoned we had 15 minutes to do the vox pops and then drive like hell for the airport. The questions had to be neutral, not leading: why are you on strike? How long are you prepared to stay away from work? What do you think of the government? And so on. Let the people speak for themselves. I noticed that I was beginning to collect an audience and more participants. There were white South Africans there, too, and not necessarily whites on the side of the government. A genial debate evolved so I dived in. Suddenly these were no ordinary vox pops, not the usual fillers at all. They were dynamite.
Len tugged at my sleeve. 'We’d better be going. We’ve got a plane to catch.’
A white man standing a few feet away looked at me with venom. 'I’m denouncing you,’ he shouted, pushing through the crowd.
'What for?’ I was not as calm as I sounded.
'For putting words into the mouths of Africans. I have called the police.’
The police wagons arrived with such speed that I was convinced that they had been concealed down a side street. Khaki uniforms, polished Sam Brownes, peaked caps and batons discreetly aligned to their lower arms, almost invisible. One of them took me by the elbow; Len was only a couple of feet away. 'Take the two of us,’ I told the officer. 'Leave the film crew alone. They’re hired hands.’ To my surprise he did as I suggested, but not before he had instructed two of his staff to seize the camera, the film and the tape recorder.
We were taken to a grey, anonymous building of some 10 floors. A lift took us to an upper floor where we were ushered into a large office. At the far end, behind an enormous desk, stood Colonel Spengler, the head of the Witwatersrand district of the Special Branch. He had form: he had been present at the Sharpeville massacre, one of the bloodiest episodes in apartheid history.
It appeared that he had already worked himself into a fury. He had severely short hair and floppy grey jowls, which shook with his anger. He found it hard to keep still: standing, then sitting, then standing again as he stared us down. Len and I were consumed by a mixture of amusement and disbelief. The more he ranted, the more absurd he became. 'Where are they?’ he shouted obsessively. 'Where are the tapes?’
There was a knock at Spengler’s office door. Two detectives came in and had a whispered conversation with him. The two men had listened to the confiscated tapes and there was no case to answer. My caution had paid off.
'Well, what do we do now?’ Spengler shouted at me. 'It was your idea to arrest me in the first place,’ I answered with surprising assurance. 'Answer the question,’ he shouted back. 'What do we do now?’
Had we been arrested for not having a film permit, Spengler would have been able to invoke the law. But no one had asked for a permit. They simply assumed that by interviewing black Africans I was now a proven enemy of the state – a different and, I imagined, much more serious offence.
If Spengler was in a spot, so was I. Without a permit I would not be able to film the first Republic Day in Pretoria. My vox pops had been destroyed by Spengler’s detectives and because of my arrest I had missed the plane to London and therefore the news bulletin.
As it happened, the world’s media – most of whom were staying at my hotel – had already filed stories about my arrest. ITN led the bulletin with it. Spengler must have known that the story had landed on newsdesks in London. Soon reporters would be asking him on what grounds he had made the arrest. That was the last thing he wanted, and it showed. So I took a punt and told him that I didn’t have a permit and, I assured him, I would tell reporters that there was a technical misunderstanding over my arrest. In return, I needed him to fix a magistrate to sign a film permit first thing in the morning. 'Of course, of course,’ he said in an extraordinary volte face. 'I will tell him to arrange it immediately.’ Then we parted company.
The magistrate did nothing of the kind. He put me to the back of the queue in his office the next morning and I got my permit four hours later. When I returned to my hotel I ordered a large whisky and soda and sulked. Patrick O’Donovan, the Observer’s brilliant correspondent, who was at the bar with me, noted my mood. The vox-pops film had been destroyed by Spengler’s men and his spooks were on my case. I had nothing.
O’Donovan was a decent, sympathetic man.
He lived by the notebook and I by the camera. 'Would you like to interview the Admiral?’ he asked. I guessed that he was referring to Nelson Mandela. 'You’d better meet Ruth First, she can fix it.’
Ruth First had an immense Jewish drive which had landed her with four first-class degrees at Witwatersrand University where she knew Mandela well and had edited a volume of his speeches and articles. She was a committed Marxist who wrote incendiary stuff for left-wing papers. Her political activities meant she was always on the Special Branch’s radar.
Several years after I met her, when she was living in England, she was killed by a letter bomb almost certainly sent by Spengler’s men. But the day that she walked into my Johannesburg hotel she was vibrant and enthusiastic. I was halfway through my proposal for a clandestine interview with Mandela when she interrupted me, her dark eyes sparkling with an engaging complicity. 'It can be arranged; we can do it within 24 hours,’ she said, sweeping away any doubts about security arrangements.
This was to be the first – and it transpired last – television interview with the man known to Africans as the Black Pimpernel. When Mandela spoke, South Africa listened. He was the public face of government opposition, and right at this moment a global audience was an unforeseen godsend to him and the movement.
Among Ruth’s vast circle of contacts was Julius Lewin, a professor at Wits. His passport had been confiscated on the grounds that he was a liberal and by implication a communist. He had a modest bungalow outside the city centre, near Zoo Lake, with a neat garden and high hedges. The house had various exits – ideal for quick getaways. He was sanguine about his own risk, which was immense, and said little before shaking the hands of the crew and disappearing into the night.
The small living-room was furnished liberally with packed bookshelves and had one plain brick wall that made an ideal, anonymous background for the interview. The crew went to work with blackout material and soft lighting – we would have to make it impossible to identify the location. I had been driven to Lewin’s house by one of Mandela’s colleagues – Ahmed 'Kathy’ Kathrada. He drove like a man being tailed, from which I drew crumbs of comfort. It took for ever, both of us silent and sweating while dusk turned to dark. (He later told me that the spooks were nothing to do with it. He had completely lost his way and was in genuine fear of missing Mandela’s arrival altogether.)
I was staking a lot on Mandela, the most wanted man in Africa and the ultimate scoop for a young television journalist. I had not told ITN in case the story fell flat, and I made sure only a handful of trusted South Africans knew the plan. Mandela was due at 2am. We had allowed 20 minutes for the sequence, which meant one change of film and no retakes. We had to nail it first time.
Mandela arrived dead on time. For a big man he moved very quietly and was in the middle of the room before we realised it. He wore a black leather jacket and I immediately recognised the trademark beard. There was no sign of the flamboyant sharp suits. He was round in the face, almost podgy, with a near centre parting of his hair. He looked tired, listless even, and spoke without his usual flair. The ready smile for the camera was absent. He was cross-legged and his strong frame sagged back into his chair. The showman – never far from the surface – had crept into the wings. He had had a terrible day. Predictably, the strike had been a failure and he had called it off. He was depressed by the media’s 'shameful role’ in denouncing the strike and Spengler’s gloating. There had been a military and police presence at every pressure point.
He began answering my questions in a weary, strained voice. (The five-minute interview was shown on ITN News and is played to this day at the Apartheid Museum and at Lilliesleaf, which has been imaginatively restored with brilliant audio and visual technology.)
'What do the Africans really want?’ I began.
'Africans require, want, the franchise on the basis of one man one vote. They want political independence.’
'Could that happen without the Europeans being pushed out?’
'We have made it very clear in our policy that South Africa is a country of many races; there is room for all the various races.’
'Are there many educated Africans in South Africa?’ I continued.
He appeared irritated by this question, as if it were an accusation and that the lack of educated Africans was a justification for keeping them disfranchised. 'Yes, we have a large number of educated Africans but it has nothing to do with the question of the vote. Numerous occasions in history tell us that people can vote without education. You want certain fundamental rights and you have aspirations and claims; it has nothing to do with education whatsoever.’
'Are you planning any more campaigns of non-cooperation?’ I could feel the tension as I asked this.
'Yes, the Pietermaritzburg resolution makes provision for a campaign of non-cooperation with the government and we are presently starting plans to implement this aspect of the resolution,’ he replied in a monotonous, almost robotic tone. (The Pietermaritzburg conference was the biggest political meeting ever held in Africa; it called for a new constitution and, failing that, a strike.)
'If Verwoerd’s government doesn’t give you the kind of concession that you want, is there any likelihood of violence?’
Then he dropped his bombshell. 'There are many people who feel that the reaction of the government to our strike – a general mobilisation, arming the white community, arresting tens of thousands of Africans, the show of force throughout the country, notwithstanding our clear declaration that our campaign is being run on peaceful and non-violent lines – closes a chapter on our method of political struggle. There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people.’
Nothing could have been plainer. The controlled aggression was back. Mandela’s words were delivered robustly and with some impatience – as if, knowing his moment, he had aroused himself from the earlier lethargy. He had got his headline, I had got my story. It was the first call to arms, and it took place in an unpretentious white middle-class house half a mile from Spengler’s office.
He left as quickly and quietly as he came. He was with us for not more than 20 minutes. We stood rooted to the spot, shaking. Klaus Krieger lit a cigarette, we all followed suit and wished there had been drink on hand. Len said we had to move fast so we de-rigged in a hurry, throwing various technical things into a bag and the tapes into a leather satchel. Len went straight to the airport with the satchel and a note from me that it was not to be transmitted until I was safely on a plane myself.
I went back to the hotel for a large whisky.
The interview made headlines, but not nearly as many as it should have. Somehow, nobody grasped the immediate significance of Mandela’s words. It is worth remembering that this was an astonishing reversal of ANC policy. Although a tactic of violence and guerrilla warfare had been discussed by the ANC before, it had always been shelved. But the savagery with which the government had met Mandela’s strikers could not be ignored.
Initially, Mandela was admonished by the ANC executive for his off-the-cuff, unapproved statement, but not for long. Within a few months he was commander of MK, 'Spear of the Nation’, formed to attack public utilities and any other targets valued by the government. But killing people was never on MK’s agenda. By no stretch of the imagination was MK truly a threat to national security. It did not have training, structure or enough personnel. I could not believe that Mandela would not be captured soon, and a year later he was, while on the road to Durban, though who tipped off the police remains a mystery.
I have left out one other question from the interview. Before he left Lewin’s house, I asked him about the Afrikaners’ nightmare – that if a black majority won power it would suppress the whites in revenge for apartheid, and that South Africa would become a black republic. He looked genuinely surprised that the question should be asked, and quoted the opening words of the Freedom Charter: 'We, the people of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people.’
At the Rivonia Trial, Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment and served 27 years. With him on Robben Island, among many others, were Walter Sisulu and Ahmed Kath rada. This period of his life helped shape the great conciliatory politician and ambassador that we have watched so closely during the past 20 years. He placed unity almost above all else, winning the trust of President FW de Klerk and then of a whole, once-divided nation. His achievements are nothing short of a miracle.
Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it | World news | The Observer
A very good piece about the continuing, never-ending saga of oil pollution in Nigeria. The debate following it is also illuminating, Please make your voices heard --CAMERON DUODU
Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it | World news | The Observer
Saturday 29 May 2010
Friday 28 May 2010
Court Screams At B.N.I Boss! | General News 2010-05-28
Court Screams At B.N.I Boss! | General News 2010-05-28
Judge threatens to issue Bench Warrant Against BNI Boss for refusing to attend Court
He and 2 other BNI employees have been sued by the former minister of Information, Mr Asamoah Boateng.
Judge threatens to issue Bench Warrant Against BNI Boss for refusing to attend Court
He and 2 other BNI employees have been sued by the former minister of Information, Mr Asamoah Boateng.
GHANA FOOTBALL'S MOMENT OF GENIUS: GHANA 2 CZECH REPUBLIC 0 (2006 WORLD CUP)
GHANA FOOTBALL'S MOMENT OF GENIUS: GHANA 2 CZECH REPUBLIC 0 (2006 WORLD CUP)
New African
July 2006 edition
We were just simply magnificent!
A moment of sublime greatness for Ghana football – Czech Republic 0, Ghana 2. It was a sweet, sweet victory –
it showed us the true meaning of a joy that is perfect in every respect; a victory made sweeter by the faith
it had regenerated in us, in our Black Stars.
There are certain moments in our lives that define us not as we normally are, but what we hope we could be. In ordinary life, we may be rich or poor; we may be healthy or unwell; strong or weak. But in our imagination, we can be anything we like.
On Saturday 17 June 2006, the “sleep-dreams” and the day-dreams of every Ghanaian converged into a new reality in a World Cup game in Germany. The message we got that day was that, “We are Ghanaians. We know we are great. And now, we have proved to the whole world that the feeling we’ve always harboured that we are indeed great, is not an illusion at all, or a product of mere self-deception, but based on reality”.
YES! A 2-0 win over the Czech Republic, the nation that went into the World Cup ranked behind Brazil as Number Two in the entire world of football, by FIFA!
But the victory was not the only point we made. What blew our minds was that our boys actually wiped the floor with this ‘World Number Two’ footballing nation called the Czech Republic. We could have scored six or eight goals against them. But the score itself mattered little.
The thing that struck everyone who had eyes to see was that the Black Stars were back to their winning ways – back to the standard that won the African Nations Cup for us four times; that enabled us to draw 3-3 with Real Madrid of Spain 40 years ago; beat Blackpool of England 3-0; draw 1-1 with Argentina (summer Olympics 1964) and beat Japan 3-1 (summer Olympics 1964).
Those were the sort of matches that built the comfortable beds upon which every Ghanaian of a certain age group could lie down and dream. But instead of playing the attack-attack-attack form of football that gave us our reputation, and which springs out of our natural rhythm of play, we have often been held back by the necessities of so-called “tactics”, the exigencies of so-called “total football” as played -- and more important, taught to us -- by Europeans.
Just when European football was dying, presenting the spectre of dreadful, cynical drudgery-on-the-pitch against the samba-carnival football of players called Pele, Jairzinho, Rivaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Romario and-and-and-samba-samba-samba! -- European football, dominated by commercial considerations that ruled coaches who had been trained to be more often interested in not losing a match, than in playing football for people to enjoy -- we were provided with European coaches to iron out our so-called “naiveté”.
They came to kill our knack! Stone dead.
They made us bury that free spirit of ours with which we delighted football lovers. Our youngsters (the Under-17s) not yet spoilt by the need to impress European recruiters, and trained by our allegedly “inferior” Ghanaian coaches, would go out and bring us the Under-17 World Cup (twice).
But as they grew up and got selected into the Black Stars team -- wonder of wonders -- they were made to sacrifice or dissipate the skills that had won them the Under-17 championship twice! Their coaches assiduously worked at taking that spirit out of them, and claimed that they teaching them “discipline”. They dared not shoot at goal “by heart”, in case they failed to score. Pass, pass, pass! They by-passed scoring chances, because they dared not believe they were goal-scoring geniuses. We watched, and we cried silently in our hearts. We dared not make a sound, lest we were thought to be ungrateful defeatists.
Well, on Saturday 17 June 2006, something cracked amongst our boys. Self-belief clicked our spirits back to life, and it all came together again for us.
It hadn’t been easy going before the match began. The formidable reputation of the Czech Republic; the fact that Italy had torn our hopes into shreds a few days earlier; the fear that our coach would once again order our boys to play a defensive game that was unnatural to them and so made them fail to enjoy football – all these had lowered our expectations.
Watching the match on TV in London was even more frustrating than the gloomy thoughts that were flooding our minds. It was ITV that was showing it, and, of course, the producers were so certain that a match between the Czech Republic and Ghana [eh, Ghana-who] would be such a turn-off for British viewers that they started the build-up with England’s performance in the World Cup in 1966, and followed it with some more history – about England against Argentina. Then they cut to an American base in Germany and interviewed loads of Americans about their match with Italy, which was due to start after ours!
So what about Ghana? Does it exist to ITV? They didn’t even show the national anthems being played. We just watched and fumes. And drank our frustrations away.
To be fair, they had a pundit of African descent, Robbie Earle, former captain of Wimbledon, who managed to get a word in edgeways just before the whistle blew, and stated quite categorically that if the Ghana midfield held up, they could win the match! His hostess, the amazingly beautiful Gabby Logan, just managed to suppress a sceptical expression when Robbie said this, and I am sure some of the British people who heard him say that, must have laughed into their beer glasses.
Well, the match got underway, kicked off by the Czechs. One or two passes by them and we had dispossessed them of the ball.
Then we got a corner. A corner so early? It was almost like a joke. Ball cleared momentarily from the Czech half. But it goes back there. Stephen Appiah gets it. Passes to Asamoah Gyan. Asamoah Gyan chests the ball and then lets fly, all in a single movement. It’s in the net – GOOOOOOOOAL!
What? What could one say?
The clock at least could speak – it said 1.07 minutes, though the ITV commentator put it at 70 seconds. He couldn’t add seven and sixty! I mean, it was THAT incredible. It was the fastest goal of the tournament thus far! Later, they rounded it down to two minutes! But who cared?
Asamoah Gyan now goes to the touchline, pursued by his team-mates, and brandishes one leg to the crowd, then another -- in celebration! But he’s soon on the ground, his mates lying on top of one another on top of him. He’s in danger of being suffocated by a collective joy, such as is not often seen in World Cup matches.
We can’t believe our eyes. I tell my son: “It’s like the old, old days – we used to say that ‘Kotoko is most dangerous in the first five minutes of a match’.”
We yell.
We shout.
We punch the air.
It’s Ghana 1, Czech Republic 0.
And then the “Agoro” [beautiful man-to-man possession football, now often described in derogatory terms by European commentators as “showboating“] more or less started and wasn’t to let up for the whole of the remaining 88 minutes.
This was real football, for the Czechs were not about to roll over and go to sleep. They gave as much as they took. Their goal-getter, Pavel Nedved, in particular, was extremely dangerous. But our efficient defence held firm. Our midfield collected balls from them and strung the play together magnificently. From man to man, across wings and into the Czech penalty box. We were just simply magnificent.
But somehow, we just couldn’t score more goals! Chance after chance after chance came and we squandered them. In a World Cup match where you are not supposed to get more than a few chances? Our shooting ability was pathetic. Had we not gone ahead so early, those missed chances alone would have made us cry bucketfuls of tears. So much so that the players themselves became amused when they failed to shoot into the net, as if asking themselves: “Ah, but what on earth is happening?”
Much of our failure to score more goals was also due to the amazing skill of the Czech goalkeeper, who happened to be called Petr Cech [latterly of Chelsea.] Anyway, we overwhelmed the Czechs and could have got at least five or six or seven more goals, had Madame Luck decided to stay at our side all the time, instead of playing hide and seek with us.
Then, in the 65th minute, we swept forward (again, once more!) into the Czech box. Amoah was brought down by Ujfalusi. I thought the Argentinean referee would – as is usual when a team from a country that is regarded as “small” in football terms is playing a “big” team – ignore it. But he blew the whistle and pointed to the spot. He stayed far back out there, sending off Ujfalusi and warding off the protests of the Czechs. It was at this point that one of those bizarre incidents in football, that no one can quite explain, happened.
Asamoah Gyan wasn’t paying any attention to what was going on around him, but concentrating very hard on how to take the penalty effectively. He heard a whistle sound and thought it was for taking the penalty. So he took it. But the referee was only blowing it in relation to the sending-off incident, and in a demonstration of how difficult it is for people of different continents to understand each other’s mentality, assumed that Asamoah Gyan had deliberately kicked the penalty prematurely without waiting for him to whistle. And he ruled the goal a no-goal, and booked Asamoah Gyan into the bargain.
The ball was put back on the penalty spot for Gyan to take the penalty again. But what with his discomfiture at his yellow card -- and the matches he might subsequently be disqualified from playing -- he didn’t focus properly and struck it – very hard, it must be conceded – against the Czech’s left-hand goal-post.
AO! My word!
We sighed in disbelief. It should teach our boys not to ever get over-excited during a match but to remain completely aware of what is going on around the entire field. If only someone had warned Gyan just to wait! And as for that referee -- well, he’d probably seen too much cheating in all manner of ways, and sincerely believed Asamoah Gyan wanted to cheat.
However, not at all disheartened, we continued to dominate the Czechs, and in the 82nd minute, Madame Luck said, “I’ve teased you enough, come for a kiss!”
And what a sweet kiss it was! The person she chose was Sulley Muntari. When the ball went into the net, we couldn’t, of course, believe our eyes. You mean after all the chances we had lost, a proper straight-forward shot had at last entered the net?
At this stage, I asked my son to open the champagne. “Dad”, he yelled in fear, “don’t tempt fate! There’s still nine minutes to go!”
“Open it!” I insisted.
He opened it.
And we drank it.
And ninety minutes went past.
As well as stoppage time.
And we still held on to our two-nil lead.
It was a sweet, sweet victory – it showed us the true meaning of a joy that is perfect in every respect; a victory made sweeter by the faith it had regenerated in us in our Black Stars.
As I write, we have disposed of our next opponents, the United States. We are now waiting for Brazil, five times world champions. Will it be champagne again, or the ash cloth?
Who cares? That match against the Czechs will be there to comfort me, should the unthinkable happen. A moment of sublime beauty cannot be eradicated by winning or losing individual matches. But the ‘impossible can happen: one London Times correspondent inventively wrote, when we beat Brazil in Carrara, Italy, on August 25 1995 in the Under-17 tournament (on our way to winning the tournament itself and becoming Under-17 World Champions by beating Spain 1-0) [The Times Football Correspondent memorably wrote that: “GHANA OUT-BRAZILLED BRAZIL!”
Maybe we can ‘out-Brazil Brazil again!
ENDPIECE: In the event, Brazil beat Ghana 3-0. Or rather, Ghana’s stupid coach beat Ghana 3.0. For his amazing strategy was to get our boys to play a defensive game, in the hope of playing a drawn match, by often catching the Brazilians in offside traps.
Someone should have told him he was a damned fool. For you simply cannot catch the Brazilians in an offside trap. They are taught to be
“too fast” to be caught offside! And our coach should have known.
And that was how Ghana’s 2006 World Cup ambitions were shattered by the rock-like mind of a coach who totally lacked imagination and killed off the natural flair of our boys -- in the match of their lives!
New African
July 2006 edition
We were just simply magnificent!
A moment of sublime greatness for Ghana football – Czech Republic 0, Ghana 2. It was a sweet, sweet victory –
it showed us the true meaning of a joy that is perfect in every respect; a victory made sweeter by the faith
it had regenerated in us, in our Black Stars.
There are certain moments in our lives that define us not as we normally are, but what we hope we could be. In ordinary life, we may be rich or poor; we may be healthy or unwell; strong or weak. But in our imagination, we can be anything we like.
On Saturday 17 June 2006, the “sleep-dreams” and the day-dreams of every Ghanaian converged into a new reality in a World Cup game in Germany. The message we got that day was that, “We are Ghanaians. We know we are great. And now, we have proved to the whole world that the feeling we’ve always harboured that we are indeed great, is not an illusion at all, or a product of mere self-deception, but based on reality”.
YES! A 2-0 win over the Czech Republic, the nation that went into the World Cup ranked behind Brazil as Number Two in the entire world of football, by FIFA!
But the victory was not the only point we made. What blew our minds was that our boys actually wiped the floor with this ‘World Number Two’ footballing nation called the Czech Republic. We could have scored six or eight goals against them. But the score itself mattered little.
The thing that struck everyone who had eyes to see was that the Black Stars were back to their winning ways – back to the standard that won the African Nations Cup for us four times; that enabled us to draw 3-3 with Real Madrid of Spain 40 years ago; beat Blackpool of England 3-0; draw 1-1 with Argentina (summer Olympics 1964) and beat Japan 3-1 (summer Olympics 1964).
Those were the sort of matches that built the comfortable beds upon which every Ghanaian of a certain age group could lie down and dream. But instead of playing the attack-attack-attack form of football that gave us our reputation, and which springs out of our natural rhythm of play, we have often been held back by the necessities of so-called “tactics”, the exigencies of so-called “total football” as played -- and more important, taught to us -- by Europeans.
Just when European football was dying, presenting the spectre of dreadful, cynical drudgery-on-the-pitch against the samba-carnival football of players called Pele, Jairzinho, Rivaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Romario and-and-and-samba-samba-samba! -- European football, dominated by commercial considerations that ruled coaches who had been trained to be more often interested in not losing a match, than in playing football for people to enjoy -- we were provided with European coaches to iron out our so-called “naiveté”.
They came to kill our knack! Stone dead.
They made us bury that free spirit of ours with which we delighted football lovers. Our youngsters (the Under-17s) not yet spoilt by the need to impress European recruiters, and trained by our allegedly “inferior” Ghanaian coaches, would go out and bring us the Under-17 World Cup (twice).
But as they grew up and got selected into the Black Stars team -- wonder of wonders -- they were made to sacrifice or dissipate the skills that had won them the Under-17 championship twice! Their coaches assiduously worked at taking that spirit out of them, and claimed that they teaching them “discipline”. They dared not shoot at goal “by heart”, in case they failed to score. Pass, pass, pass! They by-passed scoring chances, because they dared not believe they were goal-scoring geniuses. We watched, and we cried silently in our hearts. We dared not make a sound, lest we were thought to be ungrateful defeatists.
Well, on Saturday 17 June 2006, something cracked amongst our boys. Self-belief clicked our spirits back to life, and it all came together again for us.
It hadn’t been easy going before the match began. The formidable reputation of the Czech Republic; the fact that Italy had torn our hopes into shreds a few days earlier; the fear that our coach would once again order our boys to play a defensive game that was unnatural to them and so made them fail to enjoy football – all these had lowered our expectations.
Watching the match on TV in London was even more frustrating than the gloomy thoughts that were flooding our minds. It was ITV that was showing it, and, of course, the producers were so certain that a match between the Czech Republic and Ghana [eh, Ghana-who] would be such a turn-off for British viewers that they started the build-up with England’s performance in the World Cup in 1966, and followed it with some more history – about England against Argentina. Then they cut to an American base in Germany and interviewed loads of Americans about their match with Italy, which was due to start after ours!
So what about Ghana? Does it exist to ITV? They didn’t even show the national anthems being played. We just watched and fumes. And drank our frustrations away.
To be fair, they had a pundit of African descent, Robbie Earle, former captain of Wimbledon, who managed to get a word in edgeways just before the whistle blew, and stated quite categorically that if the Ghana midfield held up, they could win the match! His hostess, the amazingly beautiful Gabby Logan, just managed to suppress a sceptical expression when Robbie said this, and I am sure some of the British people who heard him say that, must have laughed into their beer glasses.
Well, the match got underway, kicked off by the Czechs. One or two passes by them and we had dispossessed them of the ball.
Then we got a corner. A corner so early? It was almost like a joke. Ball cleared momentarily from the Czech half. But it goes back there. Stephen Appiah gets it. Passes to Asamoah Gyan. Asamoah Gyan chests the ball and then lets fly, all in a single movement. It’s in the net – GOOOOOOOOAL!
What? What could one say?
The clock at least could speak – it said 1.07 minutes, though the ITV commentator put it at 70 seconds. He couldn’t add seven and sixty! I mean, it was THAT incredible. It was the fastest goal of the tournament thus far! Later, they rounded it down to two minutes! But who cared?
Asamoah Gyan now goes to the touchline, pursued by his team-mates, and brandishes one leg to the crowd, then another -- in celebration! But he’s soon on the ground, his mates lying on top of one another on top of him. He’s in danger of being suffocated by a collective joy, such as is not often seen in World Cup matches.
We can’t believe our eyes. I tell my son: “It’s like the old, old days – we used to say that ‘Kotoko is most dangerous in the first five minutes of a match’.”
We yell.
We shout.
We punch the air.
It’s Ghana 1, Czech Republic 0.
And then the “Agoro” [beautiful man-to-man possession football, now often described in derogatory terms by European commentators as “showboating“] more or less started and wasn’t to let up for the whole of the remaining 88 minutes.
This was real football, for the Czechs were not about to roll over and go to sleep. They gave as much as they took. Their goal-getter, Pavel Nedved, in particular, was extremely dangerous. But our efficient defence held firm. Our midfield collected balls from them and strung the play together magnificently. From man to man, across wings and into the Czech penalty box. We were just simply magnificent.
But somehow, we just couldn’t score more goals! Chance after chance after chance came and we squandered them. In a World Cup match where you are not supposed to get more than a few chances? Our shooting ability was pathetic. Had we not gone ahead so early, those missed chances alone would have made us cry bucketfuls of tears. So much so that the players themselves became amused when they failed to shoot into the net, as if asking themselves: “Ah, but what on earth is happening?”
Much of our failure to score more goals was also due to the amazing skill of the Czech goalkeeper, who happened to be called Petr Cech [latterly of Chelsea.] Anyway, we overwhelmed the Czechs and could have got at least five or six or seven more goals, had Madame Luck decided to stay at our side all the time, instead of playing hide and seek with us.
Then, in the 65th minute, we swept forward (again, once more!) into the Czech box. Amoah was brought down by Ujfalusi. I thought the Argentinean referee would – as is usual when a team from a country that is regarded as “small” in football terms is playing a “big” team – ignore it. But he blew the whistle and pointed to the spot. He stayed far back out there, sending off Ujfalusi and warding off the protests of the Czechs. It was at this point that one of those bizarre incidents in football, that no one can quite explain, happened.
Asamoah Gyan wasn’t paying any attention to what was going on around him, but concentrating very hard on how to take the penalty effectively. He heard a whistle sound and thought it was for taking the penalty. So he took it. But the referee was only blowing it in relation to the sending-off incident, and in a demonstration of how difficult it is for people of different continents to understand each other’s mentality, assumed that Asamoah Gyan had deliberately kicked the penalty prematurely without waiting for him to whistle. And he ruled the goal a no-goal, and booked Asamoah Gyan into the bargain.
The ball was put back on the penalty spot for Gyan to take the penalty again. But what with his discomfiture at his yellow card -- and the matches he might subsequently be disqualified from playing -- he didn’t focus properly and struck it – very hard, it must be conceded – against the Czech’s left-hand goal-post.
AO! My word!
We sighed in disbelief. It should teach our boys not to ever get over-excited during a match but to remain completely aware of what is going on around the entire field. If only someone had warned Gyan just to wait! And as for that referee -- well, he’d probably seen too much cheating in all manner of ways, and sincerely believed Asamoah Gyan wanted to cheat.
However, not at all disheartened, we continued to dominate the Czechs, and in the 82nd minute, Madame Luck said, “I’ve teased you enough, come for a kiss!”
And what a sweet kiss it was! The person she chose was Sulley Muntari. When the ball went into the net, we couldn’t, of course, believe our eyes. You mean after all the chances we had lost, a proper straight-forward shot had at last entered the net?
At this stage, I asked my son to open the champagne. “Dad”, he yelled in fear, “don’t tempt fate! There’s still nine minutes to go!”
“Open it!” I insisted.
He opened it.
And we drank it.
And ninety minutes went past.
As well as stoppage time.
And we still held on to our two-nil lead.
It was a sweet, sweet victory – it showed us the true meaning of a joy that is perfect in every respect; a victory made sweeter by the faith it had regenerated in us in our Black Stars.
As I write, we have disposed of our next opponents, the United States. We are now waiting for Brazil, five times world champions. Will it be champagne again, or the ash cloth?
Who cares? That match against the Czechs will be there to comfort me, should the unthinkable happen. A moment of sublime beauty cannot be eradicated by winning or losing individual matches. But the ‘impossible can happen: one London Times correspondent inventively wrote, when we beat Brazil in Carrara, Italy, on August 25 1995 in the Under-17 tournament (on our way to winning the tournament itself and becoming Under-17 World Champions by beating Spain 1-0) [The Times Football Correspondent memorably wrote that: “GHANA OUT-BRAZILLED BRAZIL!”
Maybe we can ‘out-Brazil Brazil again!
ENDPIECE: In the event, Brazil beat Ghana 3-0. Or rather, Ghana’s stupid coach beat Ghana 3.0. For his amazing strategy was to get our boys to play a defensive game, in the hope of playing a drawn match, by often catching the Brazilians in offside traps.
Someone should have told him he was a damned fool. For you simply cannot catch the Brazilians in an offside trap. They are taught to be
“too fast” to be caught offside! And our coach should have known.
And that was how Ghana’s 2006 World Cup ambitions were shattered by the rock-like mind of a coach who totally lacked imagination and killed off the natural flair of our boys -- in the match of their lives!
Thursday 27 May 2010
MORE FOOTBALL TALK --Daily Guide Letter too supports ERIC BEKOE!c
It is said that "when the wind speaks, God listens" and that "the voice of the people is the voice of God". But will Milo and his champions have the wisdom to listen?
Daily Guide Ghana - Letter To Milovan Rajevac
Daily Guide Ghana - Letter To Milovan Rajevac
BRAZIL ARRIVES IN SOUTH AFRICA
Brazil arrives in South Africa for WCup
JOHANNESBURG (AP)—Five-time World Cup winner Brazil touched down in South Africa early Thursday, with coach Dunga announcing “we are ready” ahead of their World Cup campaign.
Dunga’s squad, good enough to forego stars like Ronaldinho, Adriano, and Ronaldo, arrived after an overnight flight from Sao Paulo.
The Brazilians were greeted by local organizing committee chairman Irvhin Khoza, who said “You can see that they are confident and serious about this tournament.”
“The arrival of Brazil gives great confidence to all South Africans that this World Cup is really happening.”
Brazil’s opening match is against North Korea at Johannesburg’s Ellis Park stadium on June 15.
CAMERON'S COMMENT: This is very professional of the Brazlians. South Africa has an "altitude problem" for many countries whose players are used to other climes and to go there ahead pf tome, to get loads of practice, in the correct atmosphere, or acclimatisation purposes, shows how serious the Brazilians are.
South Africa's World Cup can make education a reality for all | George Weah | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Isn't our George Weah THE ONLY FOOTBALLER who ever took the ball from his own end of the pitch, dribbled past every opponent and scored a goal?
It isn't the goal that mattered so much as was the concept and the self-belief that enabled him to actualise it. RESPECT, George!
South Africa's World Cup can make education a reality for all | George Weah | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Wednesday 26 May 2010
MAD (?!!) FOOTBALL TALK: 2006 All Over Again, oh Ghana -- asks KOFI AMOAKO DUODU?
2006 ALL OVER AGAIN: POPULAR DEMAND VERSUS ‘PENNY WISE, POUND FOOLISH’ STILL WEEPING FOR GHANA AND BEKOE. By KOFI AMOAKO DUODU
Dearest maniac chieftains and unadulterated Fabulous addicts, it’s with great groaning of spirit that I write to you this day, and you can’t imagine the weight of the groanings of the ‘massive’ whose natural Ghanaian spirit can tell when we are being treated like ‘suckers’ and how can we survive when the strife is fierce and the warfare long, when we obstinately rebel against what we know in our souls to be true. Who told you that you have any striker worth his salt that you lied to Heaven and Eart and to your own soul that you were so spoilt for choice you could even contrive to think you had the luxury of dropping Eric Bekoe? You go get Bekoe?
And look how they feel so cool and don’t know that this travesty of justice shall notbring bad repercussions, as sure as I pray to Jah Big Lord, they and them that took part in it , to constrict the high ideals ‘Osagyefo Doctor’ instilled in us, to tell us to our faces that we who clamoured for better strikers in 2006 by telling them to include Armando and Boakye and they were impervious to sound advice and what did Nyantakyi say on arrival from ‘Germano’ ‘bla,bla,bla, and WE MUST GET COACHES FOR OUR STRIKERS’ and I shouted back at the tele ‘what the blooming hell did you think the ‘popular demand’ was howling about?’
Yes the ill-will executed against this youth who is truly beloved of the people , the ill-will shall bounce back to ‘’they and them that take part in it, who make I man blood flow through a River Jordan,’ Jah will raid them with much more ill-will, pressed down and running over, the wicked shall by no means go unpunished. We’ve been sold out for in this war- time we’re in, it is tantamount to treason, for withholding your terrible missile in wartime and taking rubber bullets to war is treason of the highest order and Jah shall judge this matter; everyone say, ’judgement shall go on’!.
This week the whole town caught ‘Nkrumalitis’ and I say to my friend, ’when Ghana lines up on June 13th before the whole world, Kwame Nkrumah’s children shall have 2 Serbs on our bench as we play Serbia and what signall does that send in 2010, I mean all the ‘conscious’ folk world-wide would know us to be empty barrels making most noises and blind as bats and what do you think Osagyefo’s opinion would be?’
Those of us who know the best players capable of full elasticity, who can bludgeon their way to the trophy, sound like megalomaniacs , the Utopian rejects cannot conjecture in their soul and psyche how Ghana can win the world cup, and are on a making up the numbers trip, and have forgotten how Black Satellites survived the 10 against 11 scourge the Brazilians unleashed and these Adiyiahs, Agyeman Badu’s, Inkoom’s , Dede Ayew’s, and ‘keeper Dan Adjei wrote us a new script, and when Africa is hosting the mundial, it almost looks obscene to even think we could win, we are considered as megalomaniacs by the mediocre fringes of our society ,who are not apostles, high priests and outright prophets of the beautiful. We don’t even know who we are and how Africa looks up to us to ‘do the job for them’.
Now, as bad as dropping Bekoe is concerned, the evil’s already done and we have to put our faith in things that glitter but certainly aren’t gold, and these subtle deceptions have been the downfall of many a team. Now listen to these 3 tales.
In 2002, in theJapan /Korea world cup, Jamaica had this handsome well-built ‘keeper with his nice gold chain and all and they got whacked 5-1 by Argentina, lost the next game and then faced Japan in the last group match. I had noticed that the ‘keeper was a fake, not the real deal, but ruling with an imposing countenance, every one say ‘thick, tall, meanwhile nothing’, yes in this last match they used their reserve ’keeper and come and see this shortie leftie Kingston cat. Lord have mercy, nothing went past him and I really enjoyed that game which Jamaica won 2 nil. When those 2 ‘keepers stand side by side you will be instantly in love with the imposing ‘fine boy’ but you’ll understand what it means to say ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’, you’ll understand the words’ looks are deceiving, don’t underrate no man’ oh, remember tall handsome Siimon Addo, who kept goal for Abedi and Yeboah was just the same; ,Anthony Osei Kwadwo of Asante Kotoko fame , who saved 4 penalties in the ’93 Africa cup final against Zamalek, those of us with angel eyes knew Osei was far better but Osei wasn’t so tall and imposing and this loophole would tell on us, but hey, don’t expect everyone to be on your wavelength.
What soccer hasn’t Steven Oduro played in this Ghana land from Kaladan to Oseikrom to Accra, don’t we know he does things which even Essien and Appiah are too stiff and bulky to do, but because he’s smallish, he can spin around so effortlessly and one time at the Ohene Djan Stadium he gave this pass that hovered on the touch line, curled back into play and waited for his mate and I had vim to taunt the Phobian stronghold boldly shouting in Ga, ‘ do they pass like this in Black Stars?’ and every one had to watch me quietly. When have the smart Alecs ever called Oduro for national duty? Even at Kotoko, Coach Bash couldn’t solve that riddle and didnt his toying with our talisman cost him his job.
How tall were Maradona, Osei Kofi and Opoku Afriyie? If you are not smart these types of things can mislead you to perdition. A next unimposing champion was Sam Ayipey another petite genius who played on Kotoko’s right wing that day in ’87, when we came from a goal down to mash Zamalek of Egypt 5-1, yes this guy was super and once I made so much noise for him after a Ghana /Liberia match in Accra and though he was named in the next squad to Monrovia, one Fiifi Eshun got the jersey and I could go on but right now in this modern day a similar deceptive situation has arisen with an additional dimension which has dribbled Milo and company.
In Angola was it not the Egyptian National team that outplayed all the Chelsea and Inter Milan , Dutch League as well as French league super-dupers? Yes with only 3 foreign players their local boys won the trophy and yet the smart-alecs’ don’t want to respect Eric Bekoe who plays in the same league with Gedo and Hosni ‘thems’ .
Weren’t Eto’o and Drogba there and yet we downplay the quality of the Egyptian league and let Matthew Amoah’s Dutch label as well as Prince Tagoe’s Hoffenheim German labels to glitter in our eyes and yet in real terms, Eric Bekoe is leaps and bounds ahead of them in ability to deliver and -- that ignorant disrespect must cease.
When Prince Tagoe stands next to Eric Bekoe you’ll see him taller than Eric, with his hair nicely braided with his nice ebony complexion and you will instantly judge a book by its cover. And truly, Tagoe is tall, handsome and imposing, but cannot shoot expertly with both feet and is a square peg in a round hole; and Amoah is far below Bekoe; and I know how Adiyiah will have to deliver us should Gyan take a serious knock’; but as for Amoah and Tagoe -- forget them.
Is this the improvement on 2006? Who do we think we’re fooling? None but ourselves.
And on that day, my words shall be sweet in your ears but it would be too late and we shall pray to God and being a merciful God He shall give us a third of the allotted measure we’d have received if we hadn’t sold out.
Let’s hope Quincy is not omitted or I’ll be forced to be an Argentinian, so help us Jah.
Dearest maniac chieftains and unadulterated Fabulous addicts, it’s with great groaning of spirit that I write to you this day, and you can’t imagine the weight of the groanings of the ‘massive’ whose natural Ghanaian spirit can tell when we are being treated like ‘suckers’ and how can we survive when the strife is fierce and the warfare long, when we obstinately rebel against what we know in our souls to be true. Who told you that you have any striker worth his salt that you lied to Heaven and Eart and to your own soul that you were so spoilt for choice you could even contrive to think you had the luxury of dropping Eric Bekoe? You go get Bekoe?
And look how they feel so cool and don’t know that this travesty of justice shall notbring bad repercussions, as sure as I pray to Jah Big Lord, they and them that took part in it , to constrict the high ideals ‘Osagyefo Doctor’ instilled in us, to tell us to our faces that we who clamoured for better strikers in 2006 by telling them to include Armando and Boakye and they were impervious to sound advice and what did Nyantakyi say on arrival from ‘Germano’ ‘bla,bla,bla, and WE MUST GET COACHES FOR OUR STRIKERS’ and I shouted back at the tele ‘what the blooming hell did you think the ‘popular demand’ was howling about?’
Yes the ill-will executed against this youth who is truly beloved of the people , the ill-will shall bounce back to ‘’they and them that take part in it, who make I man blood flow through a River Jordan,’ Jah will raid them with much more ill-will, pressed down and running over, the wicked shall by no means go unpunished. We’ve been sold out for in this war- time we’re in, it is tantamount to treason, for withholding your terrible missile in wartime and taking rubber bullets to war is treason of the highest order and Jah shall judge this matter; everyone say, ’judgement shall go on’!.
This week the whole town caught ‘Nkrumalitis’ and I say to my friend, ’when Ghana lines up on June 13th before the whole world, Kwame Nkrumah’s children shall have 2 Serbs on our bench as we play Serbia and what signall does that send in 2010, I mean all the ‘conscious’ folk world-wide would know us to be empty barrels making most noises and blind as bats and what do you think Osagyefo’s opinion would be?’
Those of us who know the best players capable of full elasticity, who can bludgeon their way to the trophy, sound like megalomaniacs , the Utopian rejects cannot conjecture in their soul and psyche how Ghana can win the world cup, and are on a making up the numbers trip, and have forgotten how Black Satellites survived the 10 against 11 scourge the Brazilians unleashed and these Adiyiahs, Agyeman Badu’s, Inkoom’s , Dede Ayew’s, and ‘keeper Dan Adjei wrote us a new script, and when Africa is hosting the mundial, it almost looks obscene to even think we could win, we are considered as megalomaniacs by the mediocre fringes of our society ,who are not apostles, high priests and outright prophets of the beautiful. We don’t even know who we are and how Africa looks up to us to ‘do the job for them’.
Now, as bad as dropping Bekoe is concerned, the evil’s already done and we have to put our faith in things that glitter but certainly aren’t gold, and these subtle deceptions have been the downfall of many a team. Now listen to these 3 tales.
In 2002, in theJapan /Korea world cup, Jamaica had this handsome well-built ‘keeper with his nice gold chain and all and they got whacked 5-1 by Argentina, lost the next game and then faced Japan in the last group match. I had noticed that the ‘keeper was a fake, not the real deal, but ruling with an imposing countenance, every one say ‘thick, tall, meanwhile nothing’, yes in this last match they used their reserve ’keeper and come and see this shortie leftie Kingston cat. Lord have mercy, nothing went past him and I really enjoyed that game which Jamaica won 2 nil. When those 2 ‘keepers stand side by side you will be instantly in love with the imposing ‘fine boy’ but you’ll understand what it means to say ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’, you’ll understand the words’ looks are deceiving, don’t underrate no man’ oh, remember tall handsome Siimon Addo, who kept goal for Abedi and Yeboah was just the same; ,Anthony Osei Kwadwo of Asante Kotoko fame , who saved 4 penalties in the ’93 Africa cup final against Zamalek, those of us with angel eyes knew Osei was far better but Osei wasn’t so tall and imposing and this loophole would tell on us, but hey, don’t expect everyone to be on your wavelength.
What soccer hasn’t Steven Oduro played in this Ghana land from Kaladan to Oseikrom to Accra, don’t we know he does things which even Essien and Appiah are too stiff and bulky to do, but because he’s smallish, he can spin around so effortlessly and one time at the Ohene Djan Stadium he gave this pass that hovered on the touch line, curled back into play and waited for his mate and I had vim to taunt the Phobian stronghold boldly shouting in Ga, ‘ do they pass like this in Black Stars?’ and every one had to watch me quietly. When have the smart Alecs ever called Oduro for national duty? Even at Kotoko, Coach Bash couldn’t solve that riddle and didnt his toying with our talisman cost him his job.
How tall were Maradona, Osei Kofi and Opoku Afriyie? If you are not smart these types of things can mislead you to perdition. A next unimposing champion was Sam Ayipey another petite genius who played on Kotoko’s right wing that day in ’87, when we came from a goal down to mash Zamalek of Egypt 5-1, yes this guy was super and once I made so much noise for him after a Ghana /Liberia match in Accra and though he was named in the next squad to Monrovia, one Fiifi Eshun got the jersey and I could go on but right now in this modern day a similar deceptive situation has arisen with an additional dimension which has dribbled Milo and company.
In Angola was it not the Egyptian National team that outplayed all the Chelsea and Inter Milan , Dutch League as well as French league super-dupers? Yes with only 3 foreign players their local boys won the trophy and yet the smart-alecs’ don’t want to respect Eric Bekoe who plays in the same league with Gedo and Hosni ‘thems’ .
Weren’t Eto’o and Drogba there and yet we downplay the quality of the Egyptian league and let Matthew Amoah’s Dutch label as well as Prince Tagoe’s Hoffenheim German labels to glitter in our eyes and yet in real terms, Eric Bekoe is leaps and bounds ahead of them in ability to deliver and -- that ignorant disrespect must cease.
When Prince Tagoe stands next to Eric Bekoe you’ll see him taller than Eric, with his hair nicely braided with his nice ebony complexion and you will instantly judge a book by its cover. And truly, Tagoe is tall, handsome and imposing, but cannot shoot expertly with both feet and is a square peg in a round hole; and Amoah is far below Bekoe; and I know how Adiyiah will have to deliver us should Gyan take a serious knock’; but as for Amoah and Tagoe -- forget them.
Is this the improvement on 2006? Who do we think we’re fooling? None but ourselves.
And on that day, my words shall be sweet in your ears but it would be too late and we shall pray to God and being a merciful God He shall give us a third of the allotted measure we’d have received if we hadn’t sold out.
Let’s hope Quincy is not omitted or I’ll be forced to be an Argentinian, so help us Jah.
Sunday 23 May 2010
LONDON SUNDAY TIMES: Nigerian billionaire ALIKO DANGOTE enters battle for Arsenal
Nigerian billionaire enters battle for Arsenal - Times Online
CAMERON'S COMMENT: If ALIKO DANGOTE pulls this deal off,
he will become perhaps the most high-profile businessman in Nigeria.
CAMERON'S COMMENT: If ALIKO DANGOTE pulls this deal off,
he will become perhaps the most high-profile businessman in Nigeria.
Wednesday 19 May 2010
Buhari in Oxford
GOOD PIECE REPORTING LECTURE ON CURRENT DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA BY GENERAL MUHAMMADU BUHARI, HEAD OF STATE FROM 31ST DECEMBER 1983- AUGUST 1985
Buhari in Oxford
Here we go again ... | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
OF RACE AND INTELLIGENCE --- by CAMERON DUODU
Here we go again ... | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Tuesday 18 May 2010
BBC Sport - Football - Ghana's Michael Essien winning World Cup fitness race
BBC Sport - Football - Ghana's Michael Essien winning World Cup fitness race
CAMERON'S COMMENT: Good news at last.C'mon Michaeeeel!
Chealsea's cup should show you how sweet it is to win a big cup!
CAMERON'S COMMENT: Good news at last.C'mon Michaeeeel!
Chealsea's cup should show you how sweet it is to win a big cup!
GESTAPO METHODS MUST BE BANNED FROM GHANA by CAMERON DUODU
Full disclosure: If Gabriel Atitsogbui had not been alive one day in the early nineteen-sixties, I would be dead and buried.
In those days when young men of our age group -- educated, politically conscious and anxious to serve our country in post-independence Ghana -- were marginalised, cowed by the Preventive Detention Act which barred us from expressing our true feelings about our country’s politics, we used to drown our sorrows with beer at selected spots where we thought we could discuss politics without fear.
One of these spots was the TUC canteen at Abossey Okai, Accra. One day, our sense of impotence so depressed my spirits that I over-imbibed. While driving home, I momentarily lost concentration and was speeding towards certain death at a T-junction in the vicinity.
Then I heard a voice shouting my name, “Kwadwo!… Kwadwo!… Kwadwo!”
I was jerked back into full consciousness and braked hard and was able to stop before driving straight on, at the junction.
The car behind me drew alongside and Gabriel Atitsogbui leaned out and reprimanded me: “Kwadwo,” he said, “you can drive more carefully than that! Do you want me to come and sit with you?”
Gabriel knew how to hit me and make it bite hard. I was very proud of my driving ability in those days, having been once accepted into the company of some of the finest taxi drivers at Atukpai Taxi Station, Adabraka, Accra. What would these guys say -- Kwasi ‘Way‘, Kwabena Hemeng, Kwaku Dakwa, Kwaku Biri, ‘Life‘, Lanteye, London and others -- if they heard that that ‘Small Boy“ who used to work with “Service”, had driven his sports car into a major road without stopping, and had been killed?” Or that he needed, after a few drinks, to be baby-sat before he could drive home?
“He has lost his competence”, they would have said scornfully. To them, competence was the ultimate achievement in good driving.
Kwasi ‘Way’ alone could down four bottles of Bergedorf at Superservice, Adabraka, and still work all night. And his paddy man was a beer chicken?
I shook off the stupor immediately out of sheer shame, thanked Gabriel and was able to drive safely home without mishap. So the moment the surname Atitsogbui hit me on the Internet, the man came alive in my mind like a video on Youtube.
This is how the surname surfaced in the Daily Guide of 17 May 2010:
“One Godson Atitsogbui is the husband of a woman who died at the hands of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) last week. “Be strong; your wife is dead,” was what a Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) doctor told Godson Atitsogbui, the husband of the pregnant woman who died in the hands of operatives of BNI last Thursday, prompting a catalogue of questions.”
According to the paper, “One of the questions posed by neighbours of the couple at Mamobi, a suburb of Accra, was how Castle operatives got involved in a purely Police case, leading eventually to the death of the 5-month pregnant woman, 29-year-old Celestina Tsekuma, at the hands of the Greater Accra Regional Headquarters of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) last Thursday“.
The paper continued:
“The BNI was said to have issued a terse statement announcing the death of Celestina with no details. The statement itself is generating heat in security circles, as the BNI boss is said to have denied issuing a statement, after the operatives allegedly masterminded the death of the pregnant woman. The deceased was whisked away to the BNI offices at about 10.00am on that fateful day and by 3:30pm, she had joined the statistics of the dead as her husband stood by helplessly.
“He [Godson Atitsogbui] was asked to leave the scene by doctors who were treating her in the ward at the 37 Military Hospital, only to be greeted with the scary words of the BNI Clinic medic who gave her the initial treatment before the referral, saying, “Be strong, your wife is dead.” Godson Atitsogbui, still nursing the emotional wounds he sustained as he watched his wife die needlessly while she was a guest of the BNI, told DAILY GUIDE that he is yet to be told something by the security agency; let alone get a word of consolation.”
Now, I don’t want to go into the details of what took place. I am sure the BNI has its own version and the Government will, in any case, conduct its own investigations into the incident to see what happened.
But one thing is clear to me from what I‘ve been reading in recent months: it appears that the BNI can sometimes be incited or somehow induced by individual citizens to get the organisation involved in their private affairs, especially where finance is concerned.
The reason why this happens is not difficult to fathom. The BNI -- irrespective of the regime in power -- strikes fear into the hearts of ordinary citizens. And so it should: it is essentially, a political entity, and if it comes for you, you -- and worse still, those who know you -- may surmise that the state is interested in whatever it is you are supposed to have done. Which is a mighty scary thing to any ordinary citizen, since the state is the most powerful instrument in any society.
Thefts, fraud, false accounting, assault, grievous bodily harm and murder, are all extremely serious offences against society. But they are all left to be investigated and prosecuted by the normal police service. The police do this initially through its Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and subsequently, if charges are to be preferred, through the police prosecutions department and in certain serious or complicated cases, the Directorate of Public Prosecutions.
The BNI -- which grew up from the ‘Special Branch’ of the Police Service -- must be left to do political things: to liaise with the Military Intelligence to investigate potential subversion against the state, by trying to ascertain the intentions of the anti-democrats before they strike at the democratic state and institute a military dictatorship. The BNI should not itself become an anti-democratic institution.
Private citizens doing normal political campaigning to gain power through the ballot box must be left strictly alone to exercise their freedom of speech and assembly, as guaranteed by the Constitution of the country.
But human beings being human beings, some do like to “show where power lies” and they can improperly importune powerful people, with whom they happen to have social, or political contact, to weigh in on their private disputes -- however unjustly they may have been treated -- in order to procure results that they fear the long drawn-out processes of the normal police service might not bring, as quickly as they desire.
However, in a democratic state, all persons are equal before the law. Why should the state weigh in on one citizen against the other? Political colours shouldn’t come into it, for crime is crime.
If Godson Atitsogbui were called Mills or even Kufuor, would the BNI have gone and picked up his pregnant wife in the circumstances described by the Daily Guide? I doubt it and that is a disgraceful state of mind to be forced to have in a democratic country.
The political police must be left to do political work and the normal police must be left to do criminal work. I suspect that, over the years, so much of the resources that should have gone to the police have been diverted to the BNI -- as a result of the natural interest of its political masters to survive in power -- that when the country is quiescent politically, the BNI may feel the need to make itself useful in order to justify its existence.
I am sure the BNI itself would be a much happier organisation if it was rescued from the tendency to earn itself the reputation of a smash-and-grab ‘Gestapo’ organisation. The Government must have it rebrand its image by clearly delineating the lines of responsibility between it and the Police Service.
When I read the alleged original statement from the BNI which merely said “a woman” had died in its hands, without giving her name or telling the public in detail, how she died, my first thought was, “This could have come straight from the security state of the apartheid administration in South Africa.” Steve Biko immediately came to mind.
And my stomach turned.
President Mills, please save Ghanaians from ever thinking themselves to be in apartheid South Africa.
Please smash the would-be ‘Gestapo’ organisation in our midst.
ENDPIECE: I still don’t know whether Mr Godson Atitsogbui is related to my Gabriel Atitsogbui or not, But what’s in a name? The principle’s the thing.
Full disclosure: If Gabriel Atitsogbui had not been alive one day in the early nineteen-sixties, I would be dead and buried.
In those days when young men of our age group -- educated, politically conscious and anxious to serve our country in post-independence Ghana -- were marginalised, cowed by the Preventive Detention Act which barred us from expressing our true feelings about our country’s politics, we used to drown our sorrows with beer at selected spots where we thought we could discuss politics without fear.
One of these spots was the TUC canteen at Abossey Okai, Accra. One day, our sense of impotence so depressed my spirits that I over-imbibed. While driving home, I momentarily lost concentration and was speeding towards certain death at a T-junction in the vicinity.
Then I heard a voice shouting my name, “Kwadwo!… Kwadwo!… Kwadwo!”
I was jerked back into full consciousness and braked hard and was able to stop before driving straight on, at the junction.
The car behind me drew alongside and Gabriel Atitsogbui leaned out and reprimanded me: “Kwadwo,” he said, “you can drive more carefully than that! Do you want me to come and sit with you?”
Gabriel knew how to hit me and make it bite hard. I was very proud of my driving ability in those days, having been once accepted into the company of some of the finest taxi drivers at Atukpai Taxi Station, Adabraka, Accra. What would these guys say -- Kwasi ‘Way‘, Kwabena Hemeng, Kwaku Dakwa, Kwaku Biri, ‘Life‘, Lanteye, London and others -- if they heard that that ‘Small Boy“ who used to work with “Service”, had driven his sports car into a major road without stopping, and had been killed?” Or that he needed, after a few drinks, to be baby-sat before he could drive home?
“He has lost his competence”, they would have said scornfully. To them, competence was the ultimate achievement in good driving.
Kwasi ‘Way’ alone could down four bottles of Bergedorf at Superservice, Adabraka, and still work all night. And his paddy man was a beer chicken?
I shook off the stupor immediately out of sheer shame, thanked Gabriel and was able to drive safely home without mishap. So the moment the surname Atitsogbui hit me on the Internet, the man came alive in my mind like a video on Youtube.
This is how the surname surfaced in the Daily Guide of 17 May 2010:
“One Godson Atitsogbui is the husband of a woman who died at the hands of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) last week. “Be strong; your wife is dead,” was what a Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) doctor told Godson Atitsogbui, the husband of the pregnant woman who died in the hands of operatives of BNI last Thursday, prompting a catalogue of questions.”
According to the paper, “One of the questions posed by neighbours of the couple at Mamobi, a suburb of Accra, was how Castle operatives got involved in a purely Police case, leading eventually to the death of the 5-month pregnant woman, 29-year-old Celestina Tsekuma, at the hands of the Greater Accra Regional Headquarters of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) last Thursday“.
The paper continued:
“The BNI was said to have issued a terse statement announcing the death of Celestina with no details. The statement itself is generating heat in security circles, as the BNI boss is said to have denied issuing a statement, after the operatives allegedly masterminded the death of the pregnant woman. The deceased was whisked away to the BNI offices at about 10.00am on that fateful day and by 3:30pm, she had joined the statistics of the dead as her husband stood by helplessly.
“He [Godson Atitsogbui] was asked to leave the scene by doctors who were treating her in the ward at the 37 Military Hospital, only to be greeted with the scary words of the BNI Clinic medic who gave her the initial treatment before the referral, saying, “Be strong, your wife is dead.” Godson Atitsogbui, still nursing the emotional wounds he sustained as he watched his wife die needlessly while she was a guest of the BNI, told DAILY GUIDE that he is yet to be told something by the security agency; let alone get a word of consolation.”
Now, I don’t want to go into the details of what took place. I am sure the BNI has its own version and the Government will, in any case, conduct its own investigations into the incident to see what happened.
But one thing is clear to me from what I‘ve been reading in recent months: it appears that the BNI can sometimes be incited or somehow induced by individual citizens to get the organisation involved in their private affairs, especially where finance is concerned.
The reason why this happens is not difficult to fathom. The BNI -- irrespective of the regime in power -- strikes fear into the hearts of ordinary citizens. And so it should: it is essentially, a political entity, and if it comes for you, you -- and worse still, those who know you -- may surmise that the state is interested in whatever it is you are supposed to have done. Which is a mighty scary thing to any ordinary citizen, since the state is the most powerful instrument in any society.
Thefts, fraud, false accounting, assault, grievous bodily harm and murder, are all extremely serious offences against society. But they are all left to be investigated and prosecuted by the normal police service. The police do this initially through its Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and subsequently, if charges are to be preferred, through the police prosecutions department and in certain serious or complicated cases, the Directorate of Public Prosecutions.
The BNI -- which grew up from the ‘Special Branch’ of the Police Service -- must be left to do political things: to liaise with the Military Intelligence to investigate potential subversion against the state, by trying to ascertain the intentions of the anti-democrats before they strike at the democratic state and institute a military dictatorship. The BNI should not itself become an anti-democratic institution.
Private citizens doing normal political campaigning to gain power through the ballot box must be left strictly alone to exercise their freedom of speech and assembly, as guaranteed by the Constitution of the country.
But human beings being human beings, some do like to “show where power lies” and they can improperly importune powerful people, with whom they happen to have social, or political contact, to weigh in on their private disputes -- however unjustly they may have been treated -- in order to procure results that they fear the long drawn-out processes of the normal police service might not bring, as quickly as they desire.
However, in a democratic state, all persons are equal before the law. Why should the state weigh in on one citizen against the other? Political colours shouldn’t come into it, for crime is crime.
If Godson Atitsogbui were called Mills or even Kufuor, would the BNI have gone and picked up his pregnant wife in the circumstances described by the Daily Guide? I doubt it and that is a disgraceful state of mind to be forced to have in a democratic country.
The political police must be left to do political work and the normal police must be left to do criminal work. I suspect that, over the years, so much of the resources that should have gone to the police have been diverted to the BNI -- as a result of the natural interest of its political masters to survive in power -- that when the country is quiescent politically, the BNI may feel the need to make itself useful in order to justify its existence.
I am sure the BNI itself would be a much happier organisation if it was rescued from the tendency to earn itself the reputation of a smash-and-grab ‘Gestapo’ organisation. The Government must have it rebrand its image by clearly delineating the lines of responsibility between it and the Police Service.
When I read the alleged original statement from the BNI which merely said “a woman” had died in its hands, without giving her name or telling the public in detail, how she died, my first thought was, “This could have come straight from the security state of the apartheid administration in South Africa.” Steve Biko immediately came to mind.
And my stomach turned.
President Mills, please save Ghanaians from ever thinking themselves to be in apartheid South Africa.
Please smash the would-be ‘Gestapo’ organisation in our midst.
ENDPIECE: I still don’t know whether Mr Godson Atitsogbui is related to my Gabriel Atitsogbui or not, But what’s in a name? The principle’s the thing.
Friday 14 May 2010
Ghana Rising: Ghana’s History in black and white [From the Getty Images Archive]
A BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION OF PICTURES DEPICTING ASPECTS OF GHANAIAN HISTORY
(nb: all pix copyright)
Ghana Rising: Ghana’s History in black and white [From the Getty Images Archive]
(nb: all pix copyright)
Ghana Rising: Ghana’s History in black and white [From the Getty Images Archive]
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