General Manager of Kotoko Opoku Nti
So these are the things that have been levelled at Opoku Nti: he is incompetent, he is disloyal, he is inexperienced, he is not highly educated, he is immature, and fundamentally, he is not resourceful.
Ah well, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes but do not forget he is a former Kotoko professional footballer. People like Opoku are survivors. They are the ones who won the last major trophy for Kotoko in 1983. They are the ones who put their educational future away and battled for Kotoko as youth on the pitch.
If his critics want to see what they want in Opoku Nti these days, they better be remembered that they previously had personalities with better quality traits but they clamoured for their sack.
Romanticize your heroes if you want to but stain them at your peril. The reality is that most important personalities who came to lead Kotoko were emotionally chastised with insults to tilt their image and businesses.
The fans are the ones who made the mess. They are the ones who put their fellow Kotoko mangers in tears. They are the ones who have become impressionable followers of nauseating media sycophancy. They are the ones who sat outside the activities of the club to rain unprintable insults and saw the club shattered hopes trudging past them down the corridor heading for a life in in the listlessness.
They are the ones who never sensed the danger. They have forgotten all about loyalty to Kotoko to serve individuals. They are now witnessing how a club will dash a dream as quickly as a snap of the fingers because of personalities. Kotoko is not personal. It is business and a religion.
That is the way the club fans should treat it. They have to. Why should Opoku Nti, Sylvester Asare, Hebert Mensah and Dr KK Sarpong be any different, any day? Didn’t they come to Kotoko as members of the Porcupine family?
Nobody is playing a violin for Opoku Nti but, in his world, he sank or swam trying to make it as a professional footballer for Kotoko to win trophies in his youthful days. It was about the innocent little boy Opoku proving his worth to this great club.
People like Opoku, are the ones who left home in their teens, evacuated from their studies and sent to accommodations to live with families they don’t know - away from their mums and dads, knowing their future odds chucked against football’s rubbish heap. Opoku Nti lived that life and gambled with his secondary education.
The point is, it’s not easy getting where Opoku is. Top-flight football does not breed balanced individuals to become PHD Holders or Professors. It breeds single-minded, intensely driven young men who prioritise their careers over everything else because, if they want to make it and they have to. So they shut everything else out, including education, friendships and relationships.
However, you won’t find anybody offering any sympathy for that. Whatever else comes along, nothing is going to change the section of the fans that see to their sycophantic, self-serving, unoriginal, unchallenging and buddy-buddy approach to Kotoko matters.
When would a section of the fans just stop being so horrible to servants of Kotoko? The spewing of all those awful things on Opoku Nti and those who served before are insipid. Kotoko probably faced its biggest crisis at 16th place on the league table – which led to Otumfuo Osei Tutu 11 making unannounced visit to the training grounds, and the fans must be told they cannot absolve themselves from the predicament.
As for objectivity? Well, no one has it now because everyone serves his interest. There is no one level, the situation is desperately disappointing. On another, it is downright irresponsible.
Opoku Nti has his roots in Kotoko. He has real emotional attachment to the club. The fans demand that but they could be more tactful in their dealings with Kotoko.
Maybe they cannot disguise their dislike for Opoku Nti: Maybe they expect that he could have been more dreamlike. But maybe Opoku needs our love to succeed, so why bother him with insults?
It has to be Kotoko: It has to be the religion Kotoko: it has to be the tradition: and it has to be serving Otumfuo and Asanteman. That way we are going to make it. If Kotoko is going to make it then we are going to have to sacrifice most of our personal interest.
Again, you won’t find anybody having a thought for that? Just don’t expect Opoku Nti to play nice when people insult his background and they make invisible decisions about his future.
Surely, I feel sympathy for Opoku Nti. A Porcupine who gave his to heart to Kotoko: A porcupine who many idolised him and dream of him: A porcupine who brought inspiration for a renaissance against Al Ahly of Egypt in the 1983 African Cup final.
Certainly, you don’t have to blame Opoku Nti, his hard work offered him the chance to be at Kotoko as it is the fans and the system that brought him into office.
