Ghana suffers another floodlight tragedy

The gross incompetence of managers of nation’s stadia was again highlighted when the floodlights went off abruptly during the Jones Attuquaefio Charity match on Friday.
The 5pm local time kickoff saw the Black Stars line up against the Friends of Attuquayefio predominantly composed of the famous 64 Battalion Squad of Hearts of Oak in honour of the former Ghana international and coach.
However just five minutes into the second half of the game, all but one of the four floodlights went off, giving rise to relative chaos and uncertainty at the Accra Sports Stadium as some fans shouted; ‘Heads must roll’ evoking memories of a more serious floodlight failure earlier this month during Ghana’s 2014 World Cup qualifier against Lesotho.
The game obviously had to be held up for a further fifteen minutes before the lights came back on suddenly to resume proceedings.
No explanations have yet been given for the floodlight failure which confirmed an open secret of the state of facilities at the various national stadia.
The unfortunate happenings at the Accra Sports Stadium is the second to have occurred within this month.
It will be recalled that all the floodlights went off at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi when the Black Stars took on Lesotho in their opening 2014 World Cup qualifier.
The game as a result was held up for over an hour before an ‘electrical problem’ was fixed to bring back the lights.
But prior to restoration, Director of communications at the Presidency Koku Anyidoho issued a statement on behalf of the President dismissing the head of the Ashanti Region Electricity Company of Ghana where the famous ‘heads must roll’ phrase sufficed.
It later turned out the directive was not from the President, a fact Anyidoho admitted to, and took responsibility for the statement.
A committee instituted to investigate the cause of the floodlight failure has presented its findings to the Sports Ministry.
But barely before the recommendations of the committee will be implemented another fiasco has happened even if it went off for a short period.
It is not clear what action will be taken to avert the re-occurrence of these failures.

The gross incompetence of managers of nation’s stadia was again highlighted when the floodlights went off abruptly during the Jones Attuquaefio Charity match on Friday.
The 5pm local time kickoff saw the Black Stars line up against the Friends of Attuquayefio predominantly composed of the famous 64 Battalion Squad of Hearts of Oak in honour of the former Ghana international and coach.
However just five minutes into the second half of the game, all but one of the four floodlights went off, giving rise to relative chaos and uncertainty at the Accra Sports Stadium as some fans shouted; ‘Heads must roll’ evoking memories of a more serious floodlight failure earlier this month during Ghana’s 2014 World Cup qualifier against Lesotho.
The game obviously had to be held up for a further fifteen minutes before the lights came back on suddenly to resume proceedings.
No explanations have yet been given for the floodlight failure which confirmed an open secret of the state of facilities at the various national stadia.
The unfortunate happenings at the Accra Sports Stadium is the second to have occurred within this month.
It will be recalled that all the floodlights went off at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi when the Black Stars took on Lesotho in their opening 2014 World Cup qualifier.
The game as a result was held up for over an hour before an ‘electrical problem’ was fixed to bring back the lights.
But prior to restoration, Director of communications at the Presidency Koku Anyidoho issued a statement on behalf of the President dismissing the head of the Ashanti Region Electricity Company of Ghana where the famous ‘heads must roll’ phrase sufficed.
It later turned out the directive was not from the President, a fact Anyidoho admitted to, and took responsibility for the statement.
A committee instituted to investigate the cause of the floodlight failure has presented its findings to the Sports Ministry.
But barely before the recommendations of the committee will be implemented another fiasco has happened even if it went off for a short period.
It is not clear what action will be taken to avert the re-occurrence of these failures.