'Ghana has nothing for you' - JJ Rawlings's message to 1982 AFCON winners

Legendary Ghanaian footballer Opoku Nti has recounted events that followed Ghana’s victory in the final of the 1982 Africa Cup of Nations.

Speaking in a Joy News interview, Opoku Nti disclosed that the players were really expectant of a deserving national honor as the Jerry John Rawlings administration had promised them substantial rewards.

Opoku Nti said that the players, after winning the tournament, had to spend days in Libya because Rawlings had instructed they be given a heroic welcome in the presidential jet.

The excitement around Ghana’s fourth AFCON trophy, however, died after the team was not given any gift upon arrival in Ghana and their visit to Jerry John Rawlings.

“Before the [AFCON 1982] final, we were there when the late CK Gyamfi came and said, 'This is a message from our head of state [Jerry John Rawlings] and it reads like this: 'If you win this Cup, we are going to honour you and this honour will benefit you and your children.'

Every step, whether eating, training, after lunch or supper, he would read this message to us. We didn’t even know that in Ghana, there were rumours that [Muammar] Gaddafi wanted us to sell the match to him [for Libya to win the AFCON]. Lo and behold, we won the Cup."

“Maybe, the benefit we had was being on the presidential jet," he stated.

He added, "It took us from Tripoli, Libya, and we were happy. We had to refuel when we got to Tamale, and when we got to Tema, we saw two jet planes."

“While in the plane, something happened, and we were all crying in the plane. The pilot was flying dangerously: he would take us high up and come down again… he did that a couple of times and we were all scared to death because we hadn’t seen anything like that before. We all thought we were going to die. Even those who were outside waiting for us to land were all shouting.

“If you want, go and look at the picture of our arrival carefully, no one was laughing. We couldn’t laugh because our hearts were gone.”

“They eventually took us from the airport to Konda Barracks and that was the first time we met [Daniel Alolga] Akata Pore. He told us the old man, he called Papa J [Jerry John Rawlings] old man, is sleeping but will join us soon.

"We were there for about 30 minutes before he came. He greeted us and spoke for a long time. It was from politics to many other things.

"He said what we blacks can do if we were given the same opportunities as the whites, we are better. In the end, he [Rawlings] said Ghana has nothing to offer you, except to say 'We salute you.' To be honest with you, it pierced our hearts,” Nti recounted.

Ghana won the 1982 AFCON by defeating Libya 7-6 on penalties. The game ended 1-1 in regulation time.