Bechem United Football Club– The Evil in Sports,

a Reflection of Evil in Ghanaian Society!

By: Kwaku A. Danso

The news about Bechem United football club being relegated has caused some to mourn, but honestly for me, losing or winning does not bother me as much as the news of allegations of fixing sports in Ghana. It is shocking news. But should it?

Most of you know I don’t have time for Sports and have said that until we in African learn to live like other human beings, with dignity and respect for ourselves and our environment in a clean sanitary way, to use the same knowledge others have used to improve living conditions for our people and we stop the evil deeds of greed, public theft and corruption going on in Ghana, we should be banned from participating in sports of the civilized world.

There are many who go to Church but think certain things in society happen by chance. We all so what we reap, individual evil add up collectively. I have said before and we have discussion on this topic of evil on our forum. The issue is that we have to accept that the world is not at random, even those of us who are of Science backgrounds and had our careers in Science and technology. Any observant will conclude that the devil has taken over Ghana for decades now and there is so much evil our nation stands to collapse in chaos. This is due to deeds such as deception and dishonesty, as well as public theft, which will allow our nation to be taken over or sold to others in the next 50 years. Some think I am pandering to the realm of the unknown or unscientific. Other may think I want to take away the job of the pastors and preachers and mystics. No! One simply has to stop and observe. A short history of Ghana Empire from the 1200s to now will reveal why we are where we are today! It is evil, lack of discipline, and worse still lack of punishing crime so those behind will learn!!

Folks, in every human society don’t we know what is good and what is evil?

How can a football club fix end results!! Huh?

How?

This is pure evil that is being exposed by some of the players that their coaches and officials could have fixed the results by paying the referee or the goalkeeper in order for them to win some games and to survive in the league!! Can such evil exist even in sports and entertainment? One would have thought such things existed only among greedy and evil white slave-traders of the 15-19th centuries!

Our nation of Ghana is on the wrong path for some decades now, starting when the PNDC too k over on Dec.31, 1981, and their executives and members

1. Usurped power by force of arms and removed an elected leader and constitutional government of Ghana;

2. Killed other Ghanaians for hatred and no real crimes committed and no trials,

3. Abducted and killed some prominent people including four Supreme Court Judges and a retired army officer;

4. Seized personal properties of others who were well to do, simply out of envy without any legal basis;

5. Closed down state factories and private enterprises of others with no real charges and nobody held to account;

6. Stripped retail market women naked at the markets in Ghana and caned some of them naked for selling products at prices these officials like Dr. Kwesi Botchwey and his gang themselves fixed for the sellers, without having invested any money for their businesses!! And then

7. Officials of the PNDC seized private property, cars and houses for their own use without paying for it; In addition in the latter 1980s,

8. Officials and executives of the PNDC such as PV Obeng took huge bribes like the reported $7 million from corporations like Ghana-Chem cement company coming to do business in Ghana, to give them monopoly interest and license;

9. Officials and executives of the PNDC sold state-owned enterprise (SOEs) to foreign firms at pennies on the dollar and pocketed moneys as bribes and kickbacks without anybody ever able to investigate into these and bring accountability;

10. Converted Ghana’s constitution into a personal monarchy where the elected President in the 1992 elections, which included the incumbent eleven-year dictator Jerry Rawlings competing, and to give such a person the control over every town, district, region and every public agency head, a total of more than 4,000 in all appointed instead of elected. And to add more to this fiasco,

11. The next elected leader J.A. Kufuor had not guts to investigate and correct this anomaly in our system and also continued to pillage public property and assets for self gain including selection of corporations Ghana sold assets to, and including ex-gratia emoluments in the millions of dollars.

Anybody who has employed people or done business in Ghana may agree there is a major moral and ethical challenge and gap in Ghana today. There is a major vacuum in effectiveness of leadership. It is no surprise then that young men playing sports would think of such things as fixing results and goalkeepers expecting to be paid or actually being paid, in order to perform!!

This is evil! If Ghanaian President Atta Mills, who claims to be a Christian, does not make an effort as expected to put discipline in Ghana, in public service and set some example of discipline and enforcement of laws, he will go down in history as simply continuing the same old evil deeds in Ghana taking several billions of dollars in loans which will eventually be stolen by his people and saddle Ghanaian children with debt they cannot pay and will not benefit from.

Enough warning and enough said.

Kwaku A. Danso, M.Eng., PhD (Organization & Management/Leadership)

Livermore, California, USA & East Legon-Accra, Ghana

Email: k.danso@comcast.net

President - Ghana Leadership Union (NGO), Moderator-GLU and GLF Forums.

Author: Leadership Concepts and the Role of Government in Africa: The Case of Ghana