Soaring Like An Eagle

By: Nii Ayi Tetteh (niiayitetteh@yahoo.com)

Like the late Hon. Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, one of Ghana’s best-ever Minister, he relates to all people with the same cheerfulness and openness, and he is always approachable without discrimination.

Mr. Benson Tongo (Baba), the man who elevated sports in the prisons service and played an instrumental role to lift Ghana sports into the stratosphere on a number of occasions has this year been rewarded with a role of vice president of the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA).

Literally, Mr. B.T. Baba, president of the Ghana Olympic Committee commands a lot of respect in ANOCA with his solid acumen in sports administration, a part of numerous reasons for being emphatically voted as ANOCA Vice President.

He undoubtedly receives a standing ovation wherever he goes, but he may have also sought refuge in the Zambian proverb that states that “It is only a dead man who has everyone on his side”.

He is so much a part of the nation’s intellectual rogour, and perhaps the best way to have a feeling of his sports intellect is to seek the man, permit yourself to ease into the labyrinth of his intellect, allow his voice to guide you through the country’s comprehensively sports history that produced innumerable sporting talents who have made Ghana a great sporting nation, globally.

The GOC president’s sporting career has been long and full of success, as a result of the depth and quality of his oeuvre. Now we know for a damn sure that despite his whitened hair and catalogue of heady achievements, he will protect his ideals and champion Ghana sports cause in ANOCA as well as the Olympic Movement.

For ANOCA, he has acquired a great deal of experience and gained a lot of respect for its membership, recalling the successful hosting of the 11th ANOCA Congress staged in Accra in June 2005 and naming it as the finest ever in ANOCA’s history.

Significantly, every ANOCA member is poised to supercede that record set by the former deputy director general in charge of operations at the Ghana Prisons Service.

Globally, Mr. B.T. Baba is widely remembered for his courageous steps to get past his history at the Prisons service during the course of the hearings of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) set up by the Kufuor-led Administration. For many Ghanaians, the greatest moment of hope for national reconciliation came when B.T. Baba openly apologised to a man who alleged Baba had supervised his torture in prison.

“We were young and could have done a few things out of exuberance. Forgive me,” Baba pleaded. Touchingly, the victim walked to Baba and embraced him, generating a thunder of applause from the audience in the commission’s auditorium.

Mr. Baba has since become a symbol of decency and humility being emulated by a number of Ghanaians, his colleagues at ANOCA, Olympic Movement, and beyond, who are greatly inspired by his bravery act.

It will interest you to know that he is always optimistic seeing the future with hope, confidence, believing that he can control his environment and in whatever he does seek to inspire people.

His messages drive himself and others to action and making them believe that no matter the odds they shall surely succeed.

Mr. B.T. Baba has scored excellent marks in international sports which are why his remarkable ANOCA feat must be hailed with a sense of delight and kudos. He has left indelible praiseworthy marks everywhere which will mean that ‘Life battles do not always go to the stronger and faster man, but sooner or later the man who wins is the man who believes he can’.

Mr. Benson Tongo Baba under his GOC presidency recorded a number of remarkable feats including the commencement of the Olympafrica Project at Amasaman which encompasses a 400 metre athletic Oval, soccer ground, handball, volleyball and basketball courts, a multi-sport hall, shopping mall, and a radio station.

Mr. Baba’s administration has managed to secure a permanent GOC secretariat at the Ridge roundabout, in Accra. Among other things, the administration awarded scholarships to athletes, frequently trained college, Winneba, launched of a 4-year sponsorship drive aimed at championing the GOC course, and an intensive Olympic Education programme in second cycle schools.

Interestingly, Mr. B.T. Baba’s predicament came while in the process of fashioning out a comprehensive policy for a national sports talent identification project in collaboration with embattled chief executive officer of the National Sports Council (NSC), Prince Ernest Oduro-Mensah, and a Ghana Education Service (G.E.S) representative.

Sports coup makers took advantage of the charge of government in Ghana and woefully muddied the waters, by defaming Messrs Baba and Oduro-Mensah who had justified the acumen of their respective posts in order to achieve egotistical targets.

For the sake of a few opportunists, the National Sports Talent Identification Project appears to have fallen on rocks since Mr. Oduro-Mensah; an NSC staff is currently in limbo over his role, while Mr. Baba is being illegally rejected although his position as president of the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) still stands.

A lot of success could have been achieved by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration if it had utilized the talents of Messrs Baba and Oduro-Mensah, visionary sports leaders who were eager to help develop and promote Ghana sports, devoid of politics.

Had it not been the tactful and level-headed Youth & Sports Minister, Hon. Addul Rashid Pelpuo, Ghana Sports would have been in shambles.

For his bold and objective decisions it is believed that Hon.Pelpuo would emerge one of the best-ever Sports Ministers if he maintains his posture, as he gets rave reviews of a true leader.