Why do the Prophets Tramp Along Trumps’s Tram?

 

I watched Joe Biden’s victory speech. He exuded decency, graciousness, , unity, humanity  and forgiveness, qualities befitting not only  the occupant of the high office of the  POTUS, but a man of faith. Nevertheless, the right wing evangelicals in America and other parts of the world, who project themselves as vanguards of faith, would rather have Donald Trump, a man whose speeches and actions are full of hate, division, strife, profanity, lies, indecorous language and at times plain stupidity. They chose him for the reason that he delivers to them political trophies like abolishment of abortion, outlawing gay marriages, and blind support for Israel in the conflict with Palestinians.   Of the two men, Trump and Biden, the former is the worst possible model of the Christian faith but for the sake of political benefits, the vanguards of faith have no problem projecting that image, which should be held in contradistinction to Christian values.  This stance is akin to accepting the devil because he promised you goodness and heaven, and makes mockery of Jesus’ rejection of Satan when offered him the world in Mathew chapter 4.

Maybe contrary to the naïve beliefs of some of us, the church is more about political trophies than curing the hearts of men. It is probably more important to say “this is a Christian country” than to say “the nationals are Christians”, it is more important to outlaw gay marriages, than having Christians who choose not to be gay, It is more important to outlaw abortion than having Christians who choose not to abort.

Thanks to Paula White, Pat Robinson, and all the other Christian leaders, who project Trump, we get the message- political trophies trump the state of the heart of men. I now understand why slaver endured for centuries along with the gospel. When we were told, “Jesus loves you”, we did not read the fine prints, “only that he loves us more”. I guess those prints were important in the politics of enslaving those who Christ had set free.

The Academic, The Monarch and The Spirits

Dear Brutus,

There is a good reason why I joined the PAMBASS in my teens.  Fighting was forbidden for a PAMBASS. Too many of the neighborhood chaps along the corridors of Accra New Town and Kotobabi were too eager to settle  misunderstandings with their fists. In these circumstances, you must be well equipped to dish out blows and take them in equal measure. Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t endowed with those muscles and tissues that thrive in such environments. Wearing my PAMBASS cap was a dignified way out of a duel. When I receive the first blow, I simply walk away, ostensibly, because I am a PAMBASS. I am spared the follow-up punches which graduate in severity as the number increases. I learnt very early not to use being a Christian  as the reason for not fighting back. If I do, the dude will demand the other cheek for the second slap to fulfill scripture.  

Even fools understand that they must pick their fights. It is sheer idiocy to pick one with a spirit. The great Chinua Achebe in the book, Arrow of God, told the story of a chap who beat every wrestler in town and threw a challenge to the spirits. They sent him his Chi (personal god) and he was floored one time. I don’t know what came over that smart dude, Jacob, in the book of Genesis. He struggled with an angel all night and left the battle ground with a crocked hip. Sadly, you do not always pick the fight, the fight picks you. That is the situation confronting the Ghana Institute of Languages in Accra. The learned director of the institute Dr. John Rex Gadzekpo, told a radio station “We have been having very serious nocturnal strange happenings at the Institute of late. It’s becoming very alarming, threatening the life of security guards. I am talking about ghosts and evil spirits who have been coming, banging doors and struggling over doors with the security guards and at times strangling them…”. Brutus, this is no laughing matter. The erudite gentleman consulted all the knowledge that earned him a permanent head damage (PhD), and came to this conclusion, “…We do not know what is happening. It is exoteric and cannot be handled normally…”.  So for what his long years of education hid from him, he got a traditional  priest, who I suspect has wasted less time in the classroom, to expose and exorcise the spirits. Some guards told reporters that the ghosts have asked for a fowl, but Dr. Gadzekpo went a step better. He has  sacrificed a whole goat to quench the insatiable appetite of some bad ancestors who still demand meat from the grave. I don’t envy the Institute’s accountant. How will he describe this transaction in the books? What will be the reaction of auditors if he opens a ghost account? Parliament’s account committee will be livid at the sight of that entry.

Brutus, while Dr. Gadzekpo was working hard to extricate his Institute from the grips of the spirits, some loonies have unwittingly walked into a big fight with all manner of deities. It all began a few weeks ago when an obscure online publication called the New Free Press made a ludicrous accusation that the great traditional ruler of the Asantes, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II was a conduit for a 5 million US Dollar bribe to sway the verdict in the supreme court ruling that affirmed President Mahama’s victory over Nana Akuffo Addo in the 2012 election. If you rule out mischief, anybody with a modicum of common sense should realize that the publication wasn’t worth the bytes it occupied on computer memories. But some chaps in Kumasi (capital of Asante Region) of all places, went on radio, obviously possessed by Gbeshie, and elevated the online thrash into a publication that was worth a discussion.  After doing what we do best in Ghana- talk, talk, talk- the original authors of the publication remain unknown and cannot be held to account.

 I am particularly pained by the fact that with all the IT knowledge in Ogyakrom and the coercive power of the state, we cannot smoke out some un-savvy cyber hoodlums who manifest mischief by sending emails to Ghanaweb. Some have even suggested that these chaps are ghosts. But the great monarch is having none of it. The power of our traditions and the richness of our historic culture are vested in our traditional authorities. If anybody should know a thing or two about spiritual kokonsa, the glue that binds our mindsets to ancestral thinking, it is our traditional authorities.  You see, Ogyakromians have always been suspicious about technology. The highlife musician AB Crentsil believes these iron birds that fly people across oceans is nothing short of white witchcraft. The telephone is a lying rope (ahomatrofo).The monarch will not allow miscreants practicing white witchcraft to get away with it by parading as ghosts. So he tree-struck (duabor) them. It has widely been reported in Ogyakrom dailies that the Powerful One has summoned these chaps before three different spirits- The smaller gods, the golden stool and the Omnipotent himself. My brother, these chaps are finished. Their path to appeal a verdict has been blocked because different hierarchies of spirits were co joined to arbitrate at the same time. I strongly suspect that common law will frown at this behavior, probably describing it as triple jeopardy, which is not fair to the cyber kubolo boys.

That is the difficulty in relying on the gods. The rules are spiritually discerned and the human brain has no capacity to rationalize them. We will not even know it, when a verdict is given. This is unfortunate because I want to see justice done. Nonetheless, I will keep my ears to the ground. After the date of the tree-strike, when I hear that the fingers of a man are withered without cause, and that man once used a computer or other devices to send an email, I will know that the gods have struck.

These miscreants have successfully united an academic and a monarch in the palace of the gods. Perhaps the meeting place is more important than the union.  Our ancestors have been there several times before us. Those visits were a powerful line of defense against invading colonizers from Europe who sought to enslave us on our land. The outcome is enshrined in our history. But the similarity between the visits and my behavior in the eighties at Accra New Town is not lost on me. Just as I joined the PAMBASS to abdicate my fighting duties, a visit to the gods is a perfect alibi that excuses us from finding human ways to overcome difficult challenges.

Soo long

Ogyakromian

Bayiee kɔɔɔɔɔ V - Gbeshi, the demon of the airwaves

Brutus, my brother from another mother,

My posts on the operations and activities of Ogyakrom bayiesphere have remained dry after death visited my house and took away my beloved Mum right in my face ten months ago. I have spent those months trying to decide if her demise was orchestrated by the wicked witches of my hometown. I’m happy to report that I haven’t seen a single old lady in the village worthy of the bayie title, they all look like Mama, full of love and bearing the scars of the sacrifices they made for their families. Far from this wonderful report, what really jolted me out of literary stupor are events in the Apex court of Ogyakrom where a demon was unmasked in broad daylight.

Brutus, It is understandable that   Tony Abbott,  the aspiring  prime minister for Australia, became the butt of jokes all over the world when he hit a bum note on the campaign trail bydeclaring that the most intelligent chaps on earth are not “suppository of all wisdom” . After all, what has wisdom got in common with agitations of the rectum? But for political watchers in Ogyakrom, Abbott’s vocabulary accident sits well with our observations. When it comes to the functions of the mouth and the butt, there is no grey area, but this fact seems to be lost on our politicians. Listen to them on radio and you get the impression they are sitting on their mouths and talking from their bums. They are so messed up that when they suffer diarrhea, it is in the mouth, and they flaunt the product on the airwaves like Ussain Bolt will show off his gold medals. So when NPP challenged the results of the 2012 election at the highest court of the land, party apparatchiks got into their elements, they threatened fire and brimstone if they didn’t get their way, they descended like a ton of bricks on people who shared contrary views, state institutions were not spared the vile of their tongues, and just as always, they were a law onto themselves. They come from all political parties, they are old and they are young, they are rich and they are miserable paupers angling for opportunities, they are experienced professionals and they are fresh graduates from the political mill of our tertiary institutions, they are well known and they are nondescript members of society, but once they have access to radio and other media, the value is the same.

The NPP General secretary affectionately called Sir John is unquestionably one of the heavy weights of the Radio Lords. He is knighted in vituperation. His claim to fame is being a rural champion in the company of nobles. He misjudged badly when he decided to take on the president of the supreme court of the land. In impeccable Twi on radio, he dissed the court and took the man to the cleaners in ways that till date, no orator have found words to justify. The law Lords responded by moving the radio Lord out of his radio habitat to their court room for a show down. Brutus, it wasn't a great sight to behold. The venue was not strange to Sir John, he is a learned man of more than thirty years at the bar  who has been summoned to appear before nobles to defend rural activities. He was challenged to defend his effusions before his peers, and that was an impossible act. “How can you sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” Yes, he is an amphibious animal with presence both in the village market square and the King’s court, but his defense is in the square not the court.  He was caged. He couldn't fall on his rural friends, many of whom were holding vigil and interceding with the almighty on his behalf.  There was only one strategy, shut up and allow one of his friends from nobility to deal with the nobles, while he takes every blow that comes his way without a single response. It wasn't in his DNA not to talk back, but if he wanted to be at his daughter's wedding the next day, that was his only chance.

In Accra New Town where I grew up, if you mess with the wrong crowd and you hear ‘buga’ it means you were about to get a good beating. With this knowledge, I didn't understand why Sir John will want to mess up with a name that sounds like buga,  no matter how those four letters are arranged, even if it is preceded by Atu. When the Law Lord was through with Sir John, Oh my God!  As it is said in twi, “nipa nse hwee” or in pidgin english  “Man Never Is”. The sight of the arrogant, cut to size and brought down to earth where we all belong reminded me of the message to Belshazzar in the Old Book, “You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting”. In fact his lawyer, Mr. Ayikoi Otoo, who literally begged to deny him an official number in Nsawam prison, admitted that Sir John had seen his real size. It was in one of those moments of pleading that one of the Law Lords got inspired and asked Ayikoi Otoo if he has found out from his client, what besets him, when he gets transformed from a human being to a loose cannon tin god on the airwaves. That is when the revelation happened. Lawyer Otoo immediately got filled with the spirit of discernment, and he named the demon- It is called Gbeshi! The revelation took spiritual watchers by surprise and they asked, Is Lawyer Otoo also among the prophets? Vagalas Kanko is a preacher who specialized in identifying and naming demons. I recall when he visited us in the Vandal City and got chaps like Egbert Faibille and Clement Apaak upset by calling the names of the demons that drove them to glorify Bacchus.  Not even Vagalas succeeded in naming Gbeshi before he was jailed for fraud. If it glorifies God to reveal through lawyers and not the Seers, Praise Be to God!

Brutus, do you know how many people have tried to exorcise this demon from our society? Some radio stations tried walking people out of programs to whip them into line, Media foundation for West Africa tried to name and shame them, The peace council tried talking peace into their conscience, the Ghana police tried the law of fear and panic, the attorney general’s office even tried the law of terrorism, but the radio lords only got bolder and more outrageous. But since the day Gbeshi was unmasked, the airwaves have been enjoying some serenity we have yearned for in many years. Now all a radio presenter has to do to sanitize his program is to say, In the name of Buga, Gbeshi come out! And he is gone.

I know that demons occupy a higher position than witches. They are more difficult to get rid of. I have a strong feeling that Gbeshi will bounce back with fury and vengeance after the Supreme Court gives its ruling. Didn't Jesus Christ say they come back seven times stronger? I fear that in those days to come, when you say ‘Come Out, Gbeshi!, it will respond,  ‘Atu I know buga I know, but you, who are you?’ Our challenge as a nation is, how do we get rid of Gbeshi for good? The answer is in the heart of Men where the powers of demons are curtailed.

So long my brother….

The Avoidable Debate

Tuesday 30^th October 2012 was another landmark in the development of our democratic process. On this day, in the northern regional capital, Tamale, the sitting president squared off with three other ‘perspirants’ for the right to occupy his seat for the next governing cycle in the IEA Presidential Debate (I). Millions of Ghanaians had the chance to assess the candidates as they were pressed to take off the propaganda veil from the beautiful manifestos.

The alumni of University of Cape Coast (UCC)  must have been proud on the day that the presidential debate was moderated by two of their own, Professor Naana Opoku Agyemang, a former Vice chancellor of the university, and Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the host of Joy FM’s flagship super Morning Show. The Prof wielded the big stick to whip organizers, candidates and   sometimes unruly audience into line, and Kojo brought his experience interviewing subject experts on radio to bear on the discussion with great follow-ups. It doesn’t look like the UCC is exploiting the marketing value of the occasion as there is no mention of the event and the role played by their alumni on their website seventy-two hours after the debate.

Beauty they say lies in the eyes of the beholder, but I also discovered that a debate lies in the colour of the party flag. It is easier to convince a London health inspector that grass cutter meat has nothing to do with rats than to get party people to accept that their candidates didn’t fare well in the debate. The only un-contested outcome of the debate is the abysmal performance of the PNC candidate, Hassan Ayariga. In fact, some party people have sought to ridicule candidates of rival parties by placing them squarely in the Ayariga bracket.

 I do not believe there can be any impartial ranking of candidates’ performance by sampling views from Ghanaians. Many minds have simply been made up, their candidates won before the debate began. Ironically, the only winners in this debate are the small minority of Ghanaians who approached the debate with no winner preconceived. Even among this group, there cannot be unanimity on who won the debate, because different people seek different outcomes in such contest.

For me, it is lamentable that the candidates for such high office do not accord facts and figures, their proper place in such an exercise. This failure makes the debate “avoidable” (apologies to Hassan Ayariga)

Not surprisingly, President Mahama was the best candidate in the numbers department. He provided solid numbers in answering questions on debt financing, education, and the economy. It is a peck of incumbency that he would have access to all the nation’s numbers, but he still had to put them together to make his points. However, the mess with how much it costs us to train doctors in Cuba is yet to be resolved conclusively. But that is the great thing about putting the facts out in figures- we can always interrogate your ideas and hold you to account. The President also failed to give projections when he stated how much they will invest in agriculture. The investment is only justified by the outcome, and it is only proper to give us the expectations underpinning the investment. Again in the area of Agriculture, he seemed to have misunderstood what percentages represent. He attempted to justify the fallen growth rate in agriculture by providing nominal figures that didn’t help us to appreciate the decline, a fact that was pointed out by Dr Sakara. In any case, the President told us not to get worried about the decline, because it is a fishy matter. Perhaps we will adjust by switching from fish to bush meat but unfortunately the other negative contributor he mentioned is forestry, which may suggest that we may have problems with bush meat. , Blaming God for the energy crisis rather than poor strategic planning took some shine out of the eloquence with which he delivered the work in progress to fix the problem.   

My biggest problem with the NDC campaign strategy is that they spent too much time scrutinizing NPP’s free SHS promise that they forgot to market their own message. The message that free SHS is impossible is louder than any message they have put out. So great was his focus on free SHS that president Mahama at a point in the debate confessed that he believed in free SHS, while debunking its usefulness.

 The NPP’s Nana Akuffo Addo made perhaps the most audacious promises, but he must pay a little more attention to the numbers. On BBC Hard Talk program, he would not mention the number underpinning the free SHS promise because it was an epiphany whose glory can only manifest in Ghana to Ghanaians. Since then he has failed to make the numerical revelation glow as bright as the eloquence with which the promise is delivered. At the debate, he claimed the money for the program will gash out of the oil fields in the western region of Ghana. I’m beginning to suspect that Nana was a reluctant student who was dragged to the Math class kicking and cursing, but that would be quite strange for a graduate of economics. What is even more curious is why an astute lawyer of his caliber will place such low premium on referencing. When the President questioned the source of some of his figures, he said they were caught in the global web called the internet. He failed to tell us the source of his unemployment data that suggested that one –sixth of unemployed people have stopped looking for jobs. With the right figures and proper sources, he would have made the debate between him and Mahama on NHIS and Cuba funding for doctors more exciting. On a couple of occasions he wandered away from the questions seeking solace in the failure story of the NDC government. 

To many neutrals, Dr. Abu Sakara won the debate, but he has seen enough spectacular failures of his beloved CPP at the polls to understand that at these debates, he must far out-perform his brilliant viva voce that earned him his PhD  if he will make any impact in this year’s election. He was forceful with his ideas and particularly brilliant on agriculture, but on the other hand, he sounded naïve. He has so far proven that he is a fine academic with great theories about the social contract that lack practical foundation.  He blamed the frequent changes in democratic governments for slowing down the pace of our development, and attributed Malaysia’s success story to continuity in government. For that reason he wants the NDPC entrenched in our constitution to ensure continuity. He seemed to have forgotten that around the period of Malaysia’s development, Ghana also had one government for almost twenty years but it didn’t reflect in our development. He almost swore that Ghana needed free education but here again, the numbers were missing and the sources of finance taken for granted. He is not a fan of the maxim, “private sector is the engine of growth”, and seemed ready to rebuild state enterprises all over again but said little to convince anybody that they will work this time round. He eloquently expressed what we should have done with regards to energy in the past years, but here again, the figures were locked out of the debate.  I would have been impressed with some background research that would explain why we failed, and some ingenious plans to energize our energy supply and distribution system and more importantly how much is required. Such detail will make him a more credible candidate, especially because there is a suspicion that small parties like his, lack the expertise and people to run the country.   If Mahama or Nana wins, Dr Sakara will be a great addition to their cabinet with responsibility for agriculture. That will also fill the practical gap for Sakara for the future.

If Hassan Ayariga intended to make a case for the youth in our politics, he failed woefully. When it was pointed out to him that he performed terribly at the earlier presidential encounter, he reserved a few choice words for the critics and awarded himself 85 %. I hope the mega flop  in Tamale has now convinced him he is not yet ready to be president of Ghana. He simply hasn’t got it, at least not yet. If he still insists that he is good enough, then the problem is bigger than I thought. He has a part to play in Ghana’s development, but not as the president, that would be “avoidable”. At least we know he hates free education with a passion, even though that is not what his party stands for. I am still at a loss why the PNC replaced Dr Edward  Mahama with Hassan Ayariga. Change for the sake of it?

On numbers and facts, my personal ratings are as follows:

President Mahama:        B

Nana Akuffo Addo:         B-

Dr Abu Sakara:              B-

Hassan Ayariga:             NG (Not gradable because he didn't turn up)

These grades don’t flatter our efforts to join the true middle income economies, but it will not matter too much.  The Ghanaian president is like a parent who cannot fulfill a grandiose promise to his son, so he goes to the neighbor for support. Just take note anytime some ambassadors from the other worlds visits our presidents. You won’t miss the phrase, “we hope you will continue to support our development…”. To dignify this begging process, we call the neighbors development partners. With these performances, we have put the Japanese ambassador, Chinese ambassador, British high commissioner, India high commissioner (how far will we beg?) and the others on notice. We are not sure how much we need, but with the gargantuan nature of the promises we will soon knock on your door, not cup in hand but basin on head, because these promises, they are big ooo.

PS: The IEA must think of limiting the debate to the two biggest parties in parliament. It will give candidates more time to explain their choices and the moderators more opportunity to draw attention to spurious claims. I don’t think the candidates had to stand for all those hours, they should have the liberty to stand or sit to connect to the audience.

Stinky Accra Sports Stadium, the Proverbial Gyan and the Ghanaian Flavor

WASS   ‘ayↄↄↄ’ was the usual refrain from colleagues when one questioned the absurdities of the conditions in West Africa Secondary School (WASS) in the mid-eighties. In pigeon English, the expression translates ‘WASS we dey’  to wit, this is the WASS way. Until 1988 when it was relocated to Adenta, the school was located in Accra New Town. When we enrolled in 1984, the place was good for anything but a school. The disjointed shacks that passed for classrooms had seen better days. The notorious Texaco boys who had in their fold some of the most dreaded armed robbers (some of whom were executed by firing squad ) of the time were not only our closest neighbors but also shared classrooms, dormitories and any of the scarce free space around the school with us.  Our classrooms were their sleeping place and the ware house for their staple- marijuana -which they stored in the broken ceilings. On many occasions, when nature called, they responded right there in the classroom. Because of the latter activity, students and teachers alike will abandon the classroom for days until some of us felt we’d missed our lessons long enough, so we will spread some ash on the excreta and sweep out the abomination in order to get a few teachers back. Thanks to those days at WASS, some of us witnessed ‘action’ beyond what was created in Hollywood.  On a couple of occasions soldiers  we believed were commandos, stormed the place during school hours and played ‘dzulo ke police’ with the Texaco boys. We ran and ducked at the sounds of the guns and enjoyed the cowboy stories when the raid was over.   I have come to realize that it was not just the WASS way, but to a large extent it is the Ghanaian way.  I still can’t explain why parents didn’t put any pressure on the politicians to get the school moved many years before a students’ agitation forced the issue, but if you need convincing, there it is, Ghana  ‘ayↄↄↄ’ – it is the Ghanaian flavor, the politician’s haven, where the applause for mediocrity is so loud nobody can hear the cries of neglect.

When Ghana hosted the African Nations Cup final in 2008, game tickets were sold in advance and tied to seats. Imperfect as the system was in those days, I was one of those who thought it was a great first step and that civilization had arrived. How wrong I was. On my way to watch Ghana vrs Malawi at the Accra sports stadium on the 8^th of September 2012, I heard some sport commentators lamenting the seeming lack of interest from Accra fans as seen from the empty seats in the stadium thirty minutes to kickoff. Ironically, when I got to the stadium less than fifteen minutes to kickoff, there were hundreds of fans outside the gate looking for tickets to go watch the match. Officially, tickets had run out. A friend of mine managed to get us VIP gate GH₵20 tickets. After paying for what is supposed to be a luxury seat, we watched the entire game standing with many others because there were no empty seats. We ran from the eastern to the western section with the same results-no seats. The VIP tickets sold outnumbered the seats available. Incidentally, the VIP section was the only section in the stadium that didn’t have empty seats. When we finally took our stand to watch the match, we had to endure a nauseating stench from the toilets that stayed with us for the duration of the match. No body warned us that the toilet cleaners had joined the popular single spine strikes, so it must be for shortage of Dettol and other cleaning materials on the market. A couple who were bold enough to bring their less than 6 months old baby to watch the game swapped seats to no avail.  I couldn’t help laughing at the sight of a couple of radio commentators running Twi commentary with mobile phones pressed to their heads as they struggled for space and view. They stretched their sentences to make up for un-sighted actions on the field. The next time you hear an incoherent commentary drowned in the stadium chants, just understand that it is part of the Ghanaian flavor. Perhaps the radio station was not accredited to use the commentary box leaving the commentators to jump over spectators to bring you what they can see. 

Fifty-five years after independence, we make ticketing for a football game look like rocket science. I recall a day in the eighties when a red-eyed rough looking guy walked up to a spectator at the chair-less popular stand of the Accra sports stadium, and insisted that he owned the spot where the latter stood to watch the game, because he always watched his game from that spot. When the spectator refused to give up the spot, he ended up with a cracked skull. It seems we haven’t moved far from such madness. There are those of us who wish that the stadium will be made family friendly so we can comfortably watch games with the whole family. We will love to buy tickets and be assured of our seats before we head to the stadium. We will love to walk through the gates without harassment, get into the seats that we have paid for without contending with matadors and enjoy the whole atmosphere at the stadium. It is not fair that we are estopped from enjoying a stick of kyikyinga (kebab) during recess by the lack of good cleaning program at the toilets. There is no value in messy queues at the gate that enrich pickpockets.  It seems there is greater demand for the sheltered   seats at the VIP stands; can someone stretch the shelter to cover more sections in the stadium? Wishful thinking, Ghana ayↄↄↄ, we’re doing just fine, who cares?

On the match itself, it was difficult to miss the fitness of Asamoah Gyan or the lack of it. The baby jet seems to have lost his speed and sharpness. He tried to conceal his lethargy with needless appeals to the referee for assistance. There were many, especially in England, who could not fathom why a 26 year old talented striker will abandon the highly competitive English premier league for the less glamorous league in the Emirates. But most of those guys do not know what it means to grow up in Africa.   They will never understand that for most Ghanaian talents, your short football career is also your one shot to rescue not just you, but your family from poverty. They know nothing about football age.  Over here, for lack of a meal, many former football greats perish, so when presented with the chance to play in an obscure league in the Middle East for three times  what he was making in the glamorous English premier league, Asa ,as the English love to call him, had a decision to make. He could choose to gamble on his talent to make him both famous and rich in good time, or he could choose to grab the riches immediately and risk getting lost on the radar of world football, and he chose the latter.  It is for good reason that many great players only choose to play at the emirates at the twilight of their careers, but for Gyan, he abandoned the challenge of the great leagues, the dream of conquest, and attempting to upstage the very best in the greatest theaters of the game. He may have made a great economic decision , but it seems the decision is already having a toll on his game. He must find ways of keeping his game at the top in the absence of true competition, or risks becoming a proverb. If he continues to flop like he has done of late playing for the national team, the Sheiks may soon change his status from a footballer to Liaison officer for Africa Affairs, and the next time the Sheiks approach a talented player in a high flying league,  his manager will call on the proverb- remember Asamoah Gyan.

Gyan has had a great career so far in the shirts of Ghana but there is still a lot for him to achieve. Almost a goal every two matches, two world cup appearances, BBC Africa player of the year and an African cup final are enviable achievements. But he is yet to win a cup or the CAF Africa footballer of the year prize. His penalty miss also denied Africa its first semi-final place in the world cup, a record he must be hungry to correct. Soon, an African country will make it to the semifinal and the final, and nobody will remember the nearly men of 2010. Realistically, Asamoah has only one chance to correct this in 2014. But the question is, is he hungry for these and more? Asa could just have told himself , "Onipa beyee bi, na w'ammeye ne nyinaa”  to wit  “Man came to accomplish a part, not the whole” when he embarked on project Middle East. He might have looked at his CV and assured himself, “kitiwa biara nsua”, no achievement is too small. Politicians get applauded for commissioning KVIP in the 21^st century, he has done better than that, “Ghana ayↄↄↄ”. No one can begrudge him for choosing the millions, but Ghana must look for our goals to take as to the next world cup, and it seems we must look beyond Gyan.