Lessons From Sir Cecil Jones Achievements

Consider this scenario. Ghana, a nation well noted for its exploits in continental football, including being the first country to win the African Cup of Nations on four different occasions, was going to play Rwanda for qualification to the 2004 Confederation of African Championship (CAN) in Tunisia. For comparison and to put things in perspective, Rwanda has no footballing history to boast of.

In fact one can be sure that but for the genocide committed in that country by the Hutu tribe against their Tutsi neighbours, very few Ghanaians would have known a nation called Rwanda existed. What a mismatch. Ghana was surely going to make minced meat out of Rwanda. To make things worse for the Rwandans, Ghana had imported a white man for our national team, the Black Stars. This was in keeping with our national craze for everything foreign and the belief that only the white man will solve our problems; "Fa ma Obroni, ebe ye yie".

Now consider this other scenario. Benin, which like Rwanda, will not even appear on the radar screen of African continental football, was due to meet Uganda, a country that unlike Ghana had not won many continental laurels in football, but is still considered a fearsome side. Benin had taken on a coach rejected by Ghana, our very own Sir Cecil Jones Attuquayfio. Most people wouldn't have given Benin a dog's chance. Well, as they say, the rest is now history. Ghana, with our impressive football pedigree and a white coach to boot, was humiliated in Kigali, Rwanda. Benin, with their black coach came out victorious against Uganda.

As has become the normal practice in the now frequent defeats of our national football team at international competitions, the coach will be made the scapegoat and will be given the sack as if the sinking image of Ghana soccer is due only to the kind of coach we have, black or white. The poor performance of the Black Stars doesn't come as a surprise and we should not waste too much time trying to analyse the reasons for our defeat. They are not far-fetched.

Our nation is retrogressing in every sphere of national life and will continue to do so for as long as we proceed along this dead-end path of development where emphasis is placed on the reliance of foreigners to solve our national problems. This belief that foreigners are the answer to Ghana's problems has reached its zenith under the NPP government with the calls to foreigners to come and help us manage our problems, now assuming the status of religious mantra. How can Ghanaians, including our footballers have any more confidence in their own ability when the country's leaders lack faith in their own capabilities?

The NPP government appears hell bent on selling Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) to foreigners because, we are told, they will run the bank better.

Foreign Investors

One Nii Moi Thompson, in an interesting article in the Business section of the Daily Graphic of 9th July 2003 under the heading " why the economy is not growing", analysed the failings of a 'foreigner-dependant economic system'. He wrote "a biased notion of investment that primarily focuses on foreign investments has meant that a disproportionate amount of time and resources are devoted to pursuing 'foreign investors' while indigenous investors are reduced to mere footnotes in national economic policy". How very true. Just consider the number of foreign trips President Kufuor has made within two years to woo investors.

Yet at the end of it all Ghana remains one of the five least attractive investment destinations in Africa, according to a survey report by the World Economic Forum, and quoted by the Daily Graphic of June 13, 2003. In the NPP's Golden Age of Business, while credit for our local businesses like manufacturing, agriculture, forestry and fisheries are shrinking, that for the import trade is on a rising trend. You are more likely to find foreign apples on our streets than local oranges.

Our taste for things foreign even extends to marriage ceremonies. I have read in the newspapers that our churches do not recognize traditional marriages. That is indeed a pity. Is it because traditional marriages don't come with foreign-fashion white gowns and three-piece suits, Bibles, flowers and a convoy of imported cars, festooned with ribbons? Well our great grandfathers and grandmothers of blessed memory were married the traditional Ghanaian way and if there are Ghanaians who will consider that these were not proper marriages, then they must be prepared to live with one uncomfortable corollary of their opinion that traditional marriages are improper or incomplete - they are the descendants of bastards.

Continuation of Slavery

One writer, Ekow Duncan, in an article published in the Daily Graphic of July 12, 2003 entitled "Divestiture of national investments - who did what, how and why", described privatization as colonialism within the confines of economics. That in my view, is putting it mildly.

The kind of privatization being sold to Africans by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank is nothing short of the continuation of slavery with the added bonus that the slave masters in Washington don't have to go through the trouble and expense of transporting their human cargo across the Atlantic Ocean.

During the transatlantic slave trade spanning the 16th to 19th centuries, our traditional rulers connived with the white man and sold Africa's human resources into slavery. Today, the chiefs have been replaced by politicians and the sale of national resources continues unabated, this time in the form of our physical productive assets like banks, water companies, electricity companies and the like.

President George Bush has described the transatlantic slave trade as "one of the greatest crimes of history". I wonder if anyone pointed out to George Bush, who on his recent trip to Africa spent more time in Air Force One above the clouds of Africa than with the African people, that the crime of slavery is still being perpetuated.

With VALCO paying so little for Ghana's electricity, the only help we got from President Bush was his order to our government to hurry up and conclude an agreement with VALCO, in effect, telling our government to concede to the unreasonable demands of foreigners that will keep our people impoverished.

The $15billion Bush has earmarked to combat AIDS in Africa over the next five years will come from the supernormal profits American companies like VALCO will reap from exploiting African people and resources like paying cheaply for Ghanaian electrical power. This same president who calls the slave trade a crime signed a law granting $300billion farm subsidies in order to keep among others, twenty-five thousand American cotton farmers employed, while millions of cotton farmers in Africa will have their livelihoods destroyed.

The story of the conjoined Iranian twins, Ledan and Lelah Bijani, who died during a marathon surgical operation to separate them, was received with great sadness and grief by millions of people around the world. We in Ghana can however learn a valuable lesson from the story of these two brave and incredible women who only achieved their hearts' desire in death.

Despite their serious physical handicap, Ledan and Lelah achieved a lot in their short life, with both of them qualifying as lawyers. Their zest and ambition to achieve more in life led to their fateful decision to undergo the surgery that would attempt to separate them. The admirable bravery of the twins is difficult to comprehend, because their decision involved great risk, but they were prepared to risk even death in order to achieve their ambitions.

What lesson can Ghanaians learn from the story of Ledan and Lelah Bijani? While these two incredible women risked death to achieve an aim, all that we in Ghana have to risk for a chance to lead dignified lives, independent of foreign domination and control, is hard work and a belief in one's own God-given abilities.

Sir Cecil Jones Attuquayfio has shown Ghanaians the way. He achieved the near impossible, not because he is better than Burkhard Ziese, the German coach of the Black Stars, but because Jones is a man who believes in himself. In the year he took on the management of Accra Hearts of Oaks, he led the club to continental glory.

This year, he took on the challenge of managing the Beniniose national team that had almost been written off, and transformed it into a winning side with nothing but this belief in himself.

The choice for us in Ghana is very simple; we can continue to place our hopes on foreigners and remain beggars, or we can go the way of countries like Malaysia, which took control of their own destiny, and are today reaping the abundant rewards of their sensible choice in the form of high standards of living.