Why our Leaders CAN’T Feel our Pain

You may have wondered often why our leaders do nothing about a problem which so obviously affects them too. Take Accra traffic: this being the nation’s capital it is home to everybody who falls into the “leader” category - from the President, the Vice President, MPs, the AMA boss, etc., yet despite its social and economic dislocations there is no urgent effort to fix this major urban problem. Now I know the answer. It is the same answer you have always thought it to be. I can confirm it. Our leaders CAN’T feel our pain.

Traveling to Accra from Cape Coast on Saturday, we hit the notorious Kasoa traffic several kilometres early – somewhere around the Breku area. Not only was the traffic itself moving at a snail’s pace, the situation was worsened by our usual lawlessness as drivers drove through the bush and any available space to get some advantage in reaching the Kasoa traffic lights. As I sat in my motionless car swearing at nobody in particular I saw in the rear-view mirror a convoy of heavy black 4 X 4 SUVs (which I have nicknamed “stealers steeds”) coming at top speed from behind. They all had their hazard lights flashing and horns blaring as they came crashing through the middle as if there was nothing to stop them. Indeed, nothing could.

In a split second a light flashed in my brain and inspiration dawned. I timed my move to perfection and joined the power-convoy just as the last Stealers Steed went by. I also switched my hazards and headlamps on and kept going as hard as my poor accelerator could be pressed without snapping. The masses of the people – probably the owners of these vehicles - looked on in  fear and awe from their traffic-stricken vehicles or on foot from the sidewalks as we swept by at the speed and recklessness to which Ghanaian officialdom feels ENTITLED. At that point I felt so powerful I could have sentenced someone to death with a mere stare. Power sweet!

In less than five minutes we had cleared several kilometres and thousands of stranded vehicles and arrived at the desired end which was the traffic lights intersection at Kasoa; it would have cost me at least two hours of my life if I had stayed in that woebegone traffic. At the traffic lights intersection I let the convoy go; to be honest I could not keep up the speed so they left me behind but I had achieved my objective. I noticed that a couple of policemen had stood at rigid attention, so I decided to get more information on the convoy they had probably just saluted. I respectfully beckoned a policeman and asked him if he knew who had just passed by so powerfully. He smiled sheepishly and said “I don’t know”, and looked away.

Like the policeman I also had not the foggiest idea whose power had driven that convoy at that speed because all the cars had tinted windows, which as I recall should not be permitted on our roads but in Ghana the rule of law allows the powerful to be above the law, innit? Is it possible that this was a convoy of drug dealers smashing their cargo through traffic? It is possible because in Ghana no one touches you if you look powerful.

More likely it was a political leader, possibly someone we have elected to office who was being so effectively shielded from our problems. Even if that person wished to know the problems the officials would make it impossible, although I suspect that the official must have been asleep. You would sleep too if you were being ferried so effectively against the forces of gravity.

As for me I have no regret joining the convoy but now I have tasted this enormous sense of power I am just wondering whether to try for minister, MP or DCE – they are all honourable and powerful!

Nketia and Nrican Nketsia at PAWA Pan-African Lecture on Wednesday

Wednesday February 27 this year – a few days away – will record a seminal event in the in the intellectual life of the nation. At six in the evening of the day, Professor J.H. Kwabena Nketia (please note the spelling of his name) will deliver the Fifth Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA) Lecture at PAWA House, Roman Ridge in Accra. The topic is “Creative Transformations in Contemporary Contexts: Pan-Africanism as a paradigmatic Strategy”. I can hear you groan under the weight of the topic and you are not alone. However, the best person to unlock the mystery within the topic is also the speaker on the night: Professor J.H. Kwabena Nketia.

You will understand my hyper-excitement if you read this small fraction of Professor Emeritus Nketia’s CV: Professor Nketia has accumulated a long list of positions and achievements going back nearly 70 years. He was Acting Principal, Presbyterian Training College, Akropong-Akuapem, First African Director, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Professor of Music, University of Ghana, Professor of Music at UCLA, Horatio Appleton Lamb Visiting Professor at Harvard University, Visiting Cornell Professor at Swarthmore College, Distinguished Hannah Professor of Integrative Studies at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Visiting Professor at the University of Brisbane in Australia, Visiting Professor at the China Conservatory of Music, Beijing, Andrew Mellon Professor of Music at the University of Pittsburgh, and Langston Hughes Professor at the University of Kansas, Lawrence.

 He is the Chancellor, Akrofi-Christallor Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture, Akropong-Akuapem, a Foundation Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts & Sciences, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society of Great Britain, and Ireland, Honorary Member of the International Music Council (IMC-UNESCO), Honorary Fellow Of the Pennsylvania Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, Honorary Member of the Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA), Member of the International Jury for the Proclamation by UNESCO of Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, and Board Member of the National Commission on Culture, Republic of Ghana. Whew! There is more….

Of course, he is a composer, ethnomusicologist, and a writer. He has over 200 publications and more than 80 musical compositions to his credit. His numerous Awards include Cowell Award of the African Music Society, Companion of the Order of Star of Ghana, Grand Medal of the Government of Ghana (Civil Division), Ghana Book Award, ECRAG Special Honour Award (1987), Ghana Gospel Music Special Award (2003), ACRAG Flagstar Award (1993), ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for his book on the Music of Africa, IMC-UNESCO Music Prize for Distinguished Service to Music, Prince Claus 1997Award for Distinguished Service to Culture & Development, the Year 2000 Distinguished Africanist Award of the African Studies Association of the USA for Life-long Devotion to African Studies, and DLitt (Honoris Causa) of the University of Ghana.

Now, here is an interesting twist; for many years before the 1966 coup most Ghanaians were confused by the apparent existence of TWO Nketias in our national public life. The two people appeared to be the same although pictures of them in the Daily Graphic showed there were two of them. There were indeed two of them. There was KWABENA NKETIA, the man we will see and hear on Wednesday. He was the Director of the Institute of African Studies and a leading public intellectual on all aspects of culture. The other was NANA KOBINA NKETSIA 1V, Omanhene of Essikado who was President Kwame Nkrumah’s Advisor on Cultural Affairs.

To add to the confusion, Nana Kobina Nketsia was at critical juncture the interim Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana and later the Chairman of the Council of the University. Nana Kobina Nketsia was instrumental in setting up the Institute of African Studies at Legon of which Professor Kwabena Nketia became the second director and the first African head. It is easy to appreciate how the paths of the two men crossed and were reported in public life as to understand that the two were very good friends in private. The confusion was such that even journalists often mistook one for the other.

Sadly, Nana Kobina Nketsia died in 1995 at the age of 79. There are proverbs in all our cultures that say the King does not die, and so when Nana Nketsia went to his village the people of Essikado replaced him with his nephew whose stool name is also Nana Kobina Nketsia V (the Fifth). It was a startling choice because the new Paramount Chief of Essikado is in every respect a true replacement of his venerable ancestor. He is also a university lecturer in history, an academic Africanist, a man with radical and iconoclastic views and above all a leader committed to his people’s wellbeing. Like his illustrious forebear, Nana Kobina Nketsia does not see “his people” to mean the good people of his ancient paramountcy but Ghana and Africa.

The two men, Professor Kwabena Nketia and Nana Kobina Nketsia will get together at PAWA House because Nana will be the chairman at the function at which Professor will be the main speaker. This will not be just another lecture but probably the most interesting exposition of the complex development and implications of pan-Africanism to be offered at a public lecture in a long while.

If this year did not exist scholars of pan-Africanism would have had to invent it. By an interesting coincidence, this lecture is taking place in the Golden Jubilee year of the Organisation of African Unity, now the African Union, and the 50^th anniversary of the death of Dr. W.E. B. Du Bois, the pre-eminent personality of the pan-Africa movement in the 20^th Century. Yesterday the W.E.B. Du Bois Centre in Accra and the Du Bois Planning Committee launched a yearlong series of activities to celebrate the life of Du Bois whose long life ended here in Ghana and is buried at the Centre named after him. We cannot possibly miss the Nketia and Nketsia double decker at PAWA House on Wednesday February 28. And, of course, there will be Atukwei Okai, Secretary-General of PAWA in his element as host of the whole intellectual and cultural Shebang.

SHELF LIFE

This week’s book is a curious one. In 2007 the National Commission of Culture launched the Cultural Initiatives Support Union with a two million Euro grant from the European Union. Organisations and individuals could apply for funds from the scheme to undertake their cultural and artistic endeavours. Out of this came a lovely book, SISSALA NAMES AND THEIR MEANINGS by Chieminah Abudu Gariba, the Founder and Director of the Sissala Heritage Foundation. Mr. Gariba is a specialist in adult education with a keen interest in culture and cultural development.

The book is a compilation of more than 4000 indigenous Sissala names and their meanings. The names have been arranged into seven categories: philosophical, experiential, spiritual, episodic, descriptive, praise and ancestral. The book is not only for people from Sissala but anyone who has an interest in our different cultures and how they have evolved. For more information on the book and other issues of interest to Sissala culture contact chieminahgariba@yahoo.co.uk.

kgapenteng@gmail.com

kgapenteng.blogspot.com

 

Where has our patriotism gone?

I watched the match between the Black Stars and the Cape Verde national team at a popular hotel in Kumasi where about 50 of us watching a medium-size television screen. This quarter-final match was important for two reasons: obviously Ghana needed to win to go to the next level but more importantly, from the fans point of view the Black Stars needed to play a convincing match for us to regain our sense of self-belief that our team was one of the best in the tournament. Our draw against DR Congo and two feeble wins against Niger and xxx had dented the supporters’ confidence in the team. There was a David versus Goliath quality in the match between our nation of 24 million souls and the island of just 500,000 people, but who cared.

A few minutes after the beginning of the match Cape Verde made an early run at the Ghana 18-yard box but their striker spoilt the opportunity. While most of us sighed with relief a loud groan of disappointment came from another side of the room; for a moment we thought we had Cape Verdean guests in our midst. We all stared in disbelief as a number of Ghanaians openly expressed their disgust at the Cape Verdeans’ lost opportunity. We could not believe that any Ghanaian could support the opposing team at such a critical point in the Nations Cup.

We looked at the “against” people in disbelief and raw shock but instead of that group looking repentant as one would hope they were rather very loud and assertive in their anti-Black Stars stance. Indeed, given the intolerably better football the Cape Verdeans offered on the park, our opponents at the hotel kept on their jeer even after Ghana won the match by two goals to nil. Puzzled by this phenomenon of some Ghanaians refusing to support their national football team, I decided to interview the loudest “against” person. I wanted to know whether the young man was against the Black Stars purely for football reasons or whether his antipathy spread to Ghana as a nation. It was more of the latter in some indefinite way. Take your Ghana or words to that effect.

That set me thinking. That young man and his group may have been the most vocal expression of anti-patriotism on display that day, but they probably represent something going on in society. For example, among the 50-odd people watching that same match against Cape Verde I was the only person wearing a Black Stars shirt. Indeed, even on the first Ghana match day when the Black Stars played against DR Congo, I was one of only three people wearing Black Stars kit at the Accra Shopping Mall, apart from some shop workers who had to wear it because of endorsement contracts by their companies. Overall, the number of Ghana flags flying on vehicles during this past AFCON compared to say, the 2006 World Cup dropped by a huge margin.

Is this shift merely a football phenomenon or does it represent something deeper and more sinister. There are no statistics to suggest that people are less patriotic now that before but the evidence of our own senses should be sufficient to persuade us to believe this to be the case. Perhaps some of our academic and social research institutions have done some work on this subject and could enlighten us with the harder evidence but simply talk to people, especially young people to find out what they think about Ghana, their place in it and what they can do for the country. This antipathy has been a long time coming.

I have tried to gauge this situation for years and I am alarmed not only at the growing cynicism in the country but at the official apathy to this development. It is not that the government may not be aware of the situation. In 2005, President Kufuor spoke about political “cynicism” in his State of the Nation address to Parliament and attributed it to doomsayers in our midst. In an article on the issue, I suggested that he could have gone a bit further in his analysis instead of merely blaming it on other people. I wrote about my interaction with a group of young men at a market in Accra, and what I found is even more telling today than it was eight years ago:

“A few weeks before the elections, I went to the Kantamanto area in Accra Central to talk to some of the many young men and women who are engaged in a hardscrabble struggle for existence selling anything that is not bolted down around the streets there. When I asked them which party they thought would satisfy their aspirations their answers always ran on the lines of “they are all the same, they are all in it for their pockets…” The irony was that they had previously said they would vote for one party or another. Therefore, I asked them why they were going to vote for their party if they felt so hopeless about its ability to deliver what they needed. The burden of their answers was that they supported their party without holding out any hope for themselves. I came away with the feeling that these young people saw the elections as a Hearts-Kotoko kind of situation – they were in it for the momentary thrill of the win; they will return to their hard struggle the following day…”

In the years since I published that interview I have encountered thousands of young people with even more despondent views about their place in the future of our country, and there is no doubt that they feel, in the now famous cliché, Ghana is not worth dying for. I am not sure if any of them feels Ghana is worth living for since I also know they would gladly emigrate if a slave ship docked at Tema to collect them to Somalia. Among other reasons, hopelessness is the number one cause of loss of patriotism among a population whose ranks are sharply divided into two camps of “enjoyers” and “strugglers”. Should we be worried that so many Ghanaians appear not to care deeply about this country? The answer is yes; in the same way you cannot build a religious congregation without true believers, you cannot build Ghana without people who have hope in its future.

In the latter years of the Kufuor administration, the Ministry of Information started a Programme of National Orientation which was launched when Mrs. Oboshie Sai-Cofie was in charge. It kind of fizzled out when she was reshuffled out of that ministry and disappeared altogether when the NPP left office. It did not last long enough for us to gauge its effectiveness, and of course, it was pooh-poohed by its opponents. However, it was a good idea. In the countries that we admire for their material development, social cohesion and patriotism are not left to chance but engineered through education and other forms of socialization.

Do not be surprised that you see more taxis with stickers of flags from the USA, Jamaica, and Israel… Do you know where you can buy a Ghana flag or sticker? I don’t.

SHELF LIFE      

I am reading for the third time THE RIVER IN THE SEA, the autobiography of Akenten Appiah-Menkah, who describes himself as a “village boy, lawyer, politician and entrepreneur”. These descriptions are all ably borne out and described in the book. It is the life of a very fascinating character which reads in part like fiction. The River describes Ghana of the 1940s and beyond in a detail that is now disappearing. One would wish that more people of Mr. Appiah-Menkah’s generation would leave such a literary legacy. THE RIVER IN THE SEA is published by Digibooks and available in all leading bookstores in the country.

kgapenteng@gmail.com

kgapenteng.blogspot.com

 

What I told the Kumasi Taxi Driver about Nana Oye Lithur

I took a taxi in Kumasi four weeks ago at the height of the Nana Oye Lithur abuse campaign and the Akan news on the car radio was all about the then Minister-designate whose appearance before the Appointments Committee in Parliament had raised a storm. The news reader, in what has become the radio style in Ghana, added her personal insults to spice up other people’s comments about the human rights lawyer. The driver grunted his approval and added his own caustic comments about how this woman deserves to be killed and that sort of thing. I concentrated on my own matter at hand, which was how to find my destination in the gathering dusk. However, when I thought both the news reader and the driver had gone too far I decided to tell the driver a story.

About five years ago I gave a woman a lift at the Cylinder Junction on the Spintex Road in Accra. She looked so sad and distraught that I could not help but ask what was eating her. Her husband had lately died and his sisters had denied the woman and their two children any share in the man’s property and money leaving her and the children virtually destitute. She needed help. I wrote a note for the woman to take to Nana Oye Lithur, the only person I knew who could help her in that situation. The following day the woman called to tell me of the “miracle”. She had not really believed that any lawyer would receive her, a mere common woman, in that warm way… for free!

More miracles happened as Nana Oye did not just write letters but took her to court and made representations on her behalf not once but scores of times until this woman and her children got justice. Nana Oye had not charged her one pesewa and continues to seek her interest to this day. The lawyer does this for hundreds of people and communities being cheated every year by an institution or individuals.

The driver looked confused. Is this true, Daddy?

Yes and those hundreds and thousands of people are all speaking up but her critics do not seem to be interested in that story.

But daddy, why does she want men to sleep with men?

This is what I told the taxi driver:

Men sleeping with men is not new; at least we have all heard of Sodom and Gomorrah, right? Yes. Nothing that Nana Oye or I or you would say will change that. That is the first thing. Equally, the practice has been denounced by popes, priests, Imams, patriarchs, politicians, prophets and holy men of every description for centuries. It still goes on. Maybe the time has come to think about this very carefully: the people who do these things, - are they just evil or were they born that way? I do NOT know, and I don’t think any of the people screaming their heads off knows either.

But this is not my main point: Nana Oye has not said anywhere that men should sleep with men or women with women. Nana Oye has not prescribed any particular sleeping arrangement for anyone or any group of people. This is what Nana Oye has said: She is a human rights lawyer and advocate. She stands for the human rights of all Ghanaians and people who find themselves under the protection of the CONSTITUTION of Ghana, and that includes people you and I may not like but who are protected regardless. For example, there are people who have stolen billions of cedis from the people of Ghana and go about flaunting their wealth in our faces every day. You and I may wish them lynched but they are protected by the Constitution so if we know or think they have broken the law we have to take them to court. Right? Yes.

And on that point this is what Nana Oye says, which appears to infuriate her critics and enemies even more. There is no law against homosexuality in Ghana. That is a fact. Nana Oye has not said there should be no law against homosexuality; she is only stating the fact. Ironically, it is up to Parliament to make such a law if the House thinks such a law will be good for the country. Her critics and most Ghanaians point to a law against “unnatural sexual practices”, which is meant as a reference to anal sex. In the first place, unnatural sexual acts might also refer to oral sex and the use of sex toys and even sex stimulants. It might even refer to all the sex positions in the Kama Sutra, apart from one! So there is nothing specific about homosexuality in that act, and given the possible wide interpretation of the term unnatural sexual acts may the person who has not sinned before please cast the first stone!

Nana Oye has never described herself as a gay rights activist or advocate. She is a human rights activist, advocate and lawyer; her courageous defence of human rights has brought relief to thousands of Ghanaians who are not gay. The connection to gays came at a specific instance when some people attacked a group of people suspected to be homosexuals. Was she right or wrong to defend them against a lynch mob?

Many religious leaders from almost all faiths have condemned homosexuality in line with their creed. Most vocal is the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, my church. He is a man I respect and who commands respect beyond the confines of our Church. He and all the other religious leaders are doing their job when they issue moral warnings against practices proscribed by their faith. Nana Oye Lithur as a human rights lawyer and advocate is also doing her job when she defends all people against arbitrariness in line with the Constitution of Ghana. Ironically, the Constitution of Ghana makes room for all faiths and opinions, and this right should not be taken for granted because in some countries such religious diversity is not permitted and religious leaders are persecuted for their faith.

The argument that Nana Oye is somehow disrespecting “our traditions” is ridiculous. Nana Oye is a law abiding lawyer who will not disobey lawful traditional edicts, however, our “traditions” do not permit us to ill-treat people who do things we do not like. I presume that our traditions are also against corruption but we do not go round beating up people we suspect to be corrupt but if we did that Nana Oye Lithur would defend such people. As she puts it, her work is similar to a doctor’s; she cannot turn people away because of who they are or what they do.

As for our “traditions”, let us think about them a bit more carefully. In many parts of our country widows are subjected to horrendous mistreatment at the hands of other Ghanaians just because their husbands have died. This includes the widow being kept with the corpse overnight in a locked room. This is “tradition” but is it defendable in modern Ghana? And yet I have not heard any loud condemnation coming from traditional and religious leaders.

This is how I summed up the argument to the taxi driver: Nana Oye is saying that even if you do not like what another person or a group of people say or do, our reaction to them should be in accordance with the laws of the land. For example, we cannot just beat up a group of people because we suspect that they are homosexuals. How can anyone disagree with her on this? Are those calling for her blood saying that Ghanaian citizens and residents suspected of homosexuality should be beaten up or killed in the village square? I have a feeling that this is not what some of our religious, political and traditional leaders are advocating. It appears that a lot of communication and common understandings have been lost in social translation.

SHELF LIFE RETURNS NEXT WEEK

kgapenteng@gmail.com

kgapenteng.blogspot.com

The Case for Special “Castle Ministers” for Change

Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng

Political analysts and commentators have been unanimous on one thing about the 2012 election; they all say the campaign was fought on “the issues”. Translation: instead of concentrating solely on who is short, who is unwell, who sleeps with whom and who comes from where and speaks which language, the politicians talked about health, education and that sort of thing. That verdict is both true and false. While it is true that the media focused to a greater extent than usual on the “issues”, details were lacking and political promises focused commonly on infrastructure at the expense of real policy prescriptions. This may be due to the fact that citizens mostly express their expectations in terms of number of schools and hospitals instead of quality issues, but that is no reason why political parties must do the same.

In Ghana, party manifestos usually are works of creative fantasy layered with a thin crust of fact, which is why on assuming office parties tend to dump the more encouraging promises and stick to the same old habits to which they are accustomed. Instead of coming up with new ideas for tackling old and new problems governments like to talk about infrastructure, which is a safe haven because it can create countable units of things – buildings, bridges, and roads – to which the man and woman in the street can relate as the main measure of progress and success.

Currently the media and public have focused their attention of appointments the President has made with a measure of fascination and some confusion due to some novel ideas. For example, President Mahama has appointed a number of his party members, some with previous ministerial experience to superintend different aspects of his government’s work, including the construction of various infrastructural projects during the current presidential term. It was the appointment of Albin Bagbin, Cletus Avoka and E.T. Mensah, collectively dubbed the “Three Wise Men” to oversee the establishment of 200 Senior High Schools, 10 Training Colleges, a University in the Eastern Region, and construction of international and Regional airports that a howl of protest. The critics are either against the principle of appointing such “extracurricular” ministers or appointing other people to do work that should be routine for ministries and agencies already existing and budgeted for in the current expenditure plan.

I have a lot of sympathy for the President; he should be able to create new positions that emphasise areas that are priority for his administration. This is common to all governments around the world, and in that sense one can understand the political and psychological signaling the President has sought to create with the appointment of several Castle Ministers in the government. However, while these appointments may help the President to achieve his aims, they represent a risk due to the possibility of infighting and conflicts between ministers heading REAL ministries and the new breed of “Castle ministers” responsible for bits and pieces of matters that are traditionally within the domain of regular ministers.

So, although the principle of assigning ministerial or special assistant status to trusted people in government is well established such appointments are usually allocated to areas that require innovation and coordination across several government departments and agencies. In some cases these special focuses are meant to respond to new and emerging trends to old and new problems. In Ghana today, one would expect that such treatment would be given to some of the most intractable cross-cutting challenges in our nation and for which no specific ministries are traditionally assigned.

Let me give one example beginning with a question: if you were to ask Ghanaians which issue bothers them most in their daily lives I have no doubt that the word “discipline” would feature close to the very top. And yet the last time a diffident effort was undertaken to make discipline an official issue was in the early months of the Kufuor administration when the late Alhaji Aliu Mahama made the issue something of a personal crusade. It did not persist for long, I suspect because the administration had not mechanism to handle such a broad issue which had neither a specific agency nor budget to support it. What about a minister of state responsible for coordinating government efforts at instilling discipline in the country. That office would be responsible for coordinating work across several departments and initiatives which cannot be dealt with by one department. Furthermore, since the outcome of the work of such an office cannot be quantified by counting roads and buildings it would call for more fine-tuning of government work to include important benchmarks that may be missing in the ordinary scheme of things.

Another example is technology. There is a Ministry of Science and Technology but technology is so wide and all-encompassing that to clasp it in the embrace of one ministry is possibly the surest disservice to this most vital sector. Technology and innovation are required across government and society in the most profound way; it is required in finance and economy, communication, security, education, health, the environment, agriculture, labour, social welfare…; it is a long list. Without technology no country or society can survive in the world at any stage, but the challenge is greater now than at any point in our history because of the almost total dependence on technology for almost whatever we do.

The President is within his right to appoint these extra-curricular ministers since the case for such an innovative approach has been established but the strategy has to be limited to truly cross-cutting issues to avoid duplication in the work of the government. The truth is there can be no change without innovating in the way government work is carried out. Thus creating new special offices might result in freeing a lot of the work from the sheer inertia of civil service procedures. Another reason might be to keep the President briefed constantly on the details of his pet projects or the areas reserved for special supervision by the battery of powerful advisers. Whether this high stakes gamble will pay off will only be known in the future.

SHELF LIFE

For reasons that do not need to be stated my book for this week has been the excellent compilation of football history, "The Complete History of Ghana Football League: 1958-2012" written by veteran sportswriter Ken Bediako, former Sports Editor of the Daily Graphic. The book is a joy to have around while watching the contemporary Ghanaian kickers of the leathery globe strutting their stuff and making us proud (so far) in South Africa.

If you love sports, not just football, you will love this book which was launched last October and now available at Silverbird Bookstore at Accra Mall and other leading bookstores in the country.

As one reviewer wrote, “the book chronicles the careers of Ghana’s footballers and clubs and highlights some funny bits of history too. A veteran sports journalist, Ken Bediako is one of those men who can be described as being "around forever…” The Minister of Information Fritz Baffour praised the author at the launch saying, “documentation such as this provides a written account of activities as they happened. Books like Ken Bediako's are places to go when time has passed and memory fails even the best of current journalists. Ken Bediako's book is a concise, yet comprehensive compilation of the body of knowledge that's been left unkempt by all of us.