I once wrote an article with the headline "Nsemfoo ye ahyi", which the Features Editor, a non-Akan speaker, translated into English as "Silly things Irritate".
The head and tail of it was that I used the Assin Fosu road from Accra to Kumasi on a Saturday.
There were no indications that the stretch between Assin Praso and Twifo Praso would be blocked for resurfacing the next day.
So I decided to use the same route the next day, whilst returning from Kumasi, to find the road blocked at Twifo Praso due to road works.
Motorists had to wait between four and eight hours at both ends of the bridge over the River Pra.
Subsequently, a delegation from the construction company came to Graphic to explain that the District Chief Executive of Adansi South sought help to patch the portion, and they did not have time to give public notice, resulting in travellers getting stranded.
There is a piece of information that I saw and heard on social media, confirmed by veteran sports journalist Dan Kwaku Yeboah of Despite Media, that is not only irritating and irksome but very disturbing and dangerous, pointing to the rot and irrational developments in our football management with the tacit approval of the Ghana Football Association (GFA).
In essence, the information, if proven to be factual, suggests that the GFA seems so rotten and stinking to the point that the system is bereft of integrity, close to madness.
Two issues that caused me anguish and goose pimples are that in the previous season, where RTU was relegated, the team faced a player revolt for non-payment of salaries, raised a "frefre kodie" team to play Dreams FC, and no disciplinary action was taken against the team, whilst the results were upheld.
The second is about the chairman of the Western Region Football Association, allegedly using the players of Basake FC, a premier league team, to play for a second division team, both owned by him, which enabled the second division team to gain promotion to the first division.
In both cases, the GFA is noted to have done nothing about the situation by validating the results.
It means that we are mismanaging football, undermining discipline, allowing illegitimacy, discouraging effort and applauding fraud.
We are destroying the roots of sincerity and hard work.
More important, we are nurturing nepotism by ensuring that only footballers playing for teams owned by executives of the association and those associated with them get opportunity to play for the nation at the junior levels and then when it comes to the Black Stars, roam the world, poach players seen to have any blood relations from Ghana and put them out as our national players, even then without some of the gossips of demands from officials before inclusion.
At least, if the rumours about such incidents in Ghana have not been established or confirmed, there is the story of Kylian Mbappe, whose father said he took his son to play for the country of his ancestors, but was asked to pay a huge amount of money in dollars with the concomitant that he had to return to France, where that boy has become a football legend.
These could be the tip of the iceberg of the rot and corruption within the football sector, one of the most potential areas for employment and talent development.
That could work against our national interest and, therefore, whilst the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) does not allow for political interference but admits nations which expose corruption and corruptible practices to help the Federation purge and flush out those who hide under the cover of darkness to abuse the system for selfish ends, the state must investigate some of these claims and present the facts to FIFA to do the house cleaning.
Comments
Moving from football, it is imperative to respond to the comments by the Minister of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Ahmed Ibrahim, that anyone who failed to participate in the national sanitation days last Friday and Saturday could end up in jail.
Whilst the Minister of Government Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, maintained that last Friday was a working day, how come something proposed as voluntary had a threat of imprisonment?
Where then is the voluntariness? Under what crime would those who absented themselves from the exercise have been charged?
Whilst we must all understand that such exercises are of utmost public and national interest, we need to encourage, persuade and convince citizens to readily be part rather than threaten them with punitive actions.
In the first place, if the minister wanted the exercise to be compulsory, why did he not seek to pass an Executive Instrument to that effect?
It must be explained and pointed out to government appointees that this country is a constitutional democracy guided by the rule of law and due process.
Article 19 (11) states unequivocally that "No person shall be convicted of a criminal offence unless the offence is defined and the penalty for it is prescribed in a written law”.
Equally, under Article 162 (5), it is said that "All agencies of the mass media shall, at all times, be free to uphold the principles, provisions and objectives of this Constitution, and shall uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people of Ghana".
The executive powers reserved to the President are not because he is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Ghana, but because he is the head of state and government.
Therefore, to invoke the fact that he is the Commander in Chief whose every statement is enforceable is to misunderstand the law.
More so, we are not under any state of emergency to warrant the suspension of the rule of law and due process.
The manner in which Presidential orders must have the proof of legality is stated in Article 58 (5), which creates the path that "A constitutional or statutory instrument or any other instrument made, issued or executed in the name of the President shall be authenticated by the signature of a minister and the validity of any such instrument so authenticated shall not be called in question on the ground that it is not made, issued or executed by the President".
President John Dramani Mahama, my Roommate at Commonwealth Hall, University of Ghana, is no autocrat or dictator, but a liberal democrat.
His appointees must, therefore, not act in any way to present him as such, or do so to demonstrate demagoguery.
The national sanitation exercises are critical public interest acts that require the maximum participation of all citizens, but they must not be presented as "volucompo"; the next time there might be the need for all to do so, for as long as we act irresponsibly against our common interests.
