May Cape Coast Stadium not join the league of decaying stadia
Just before Ghana hosted the 1978 Africa Cup of Nations, the late General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong ordered the renovation of the then Kumasi and Accra Sports stadia. That was when the Osu Stand and others were built resulting in the addition of sitting capacities to accommodate more fans.
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General Acheampong, though the Head of State then, was also the Commissioner (Minister) responsible for Sports although he had Lt Col Simpe Asante as his Special Assistant to perform certain vital duties on his behalf. The two renovated stadia became a showpiece in size and quality. We had brand new toilets, scoreboards, better VIP stands and a swimming pool which had remained uncompleted to date, perhaps because General Acheampong was overthrown in a palace coup that year. But the two stadia remained as our best venues for both national and international matches for more than two decades.
However, during those years, the facilities gradually and systematically declined to the extent that almost all the toilets were locked up. The stadium scoreboard which initially was a showpiece stopped functioning just as other electronic devices. Almost 25 years after the Acheampong directed renovation, we had to start from scratch as the nation prepared to host the 2008 African Cup tournament.
And since we did not have enough funds ourselves, Ghana as a nation had to scout round for assistance which we found from the government of the Republic of China. This time, we did not only rehabilitate and refurbish the Kumasi and Accra sports stadia. We built two fresh ones in Tamale. But true to our tradition of not taking care of in maintaining our public buildings and other infrastructural facilities, we have watched them to deteriorate and virtually gotten rotten.
Indeed some few months ago, the Ashanti Regional Director of the National sports Authority decided to virtually auction the VIP stand at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium to private individuals with the objective of raising funds for its maintenance and sustainability. Meanwhile, three weeks ago, President Mahama unveiled a multi-sport modern stadium, in the Cape Coast. The ceremony was broadcast live on GBC television, perhaps to enable as many Ghanaians as possible to be part of the ceremony and to revelish in glamour and sheer architectural beauty of the new stadium. It was nice, but if I had my own way, GBC television should be rather showing the reverse. The reverse being the dilapidated lighting systems and ceilings, the non-functional score-boards, the broken toilet seats and sinks, and the ‘sakora’ pitches at the Accra, Kumasi Sekondi and Tamale stadia.
President Mahama in the joy of the occasion and, perhaps, in political promise and campaign, promised to build similar stadia in four other regional capitals, including Koforidua and Ho. The refrain should be a big Amen, since those parts of the country also deserve to have their own stadia. But we should be more serious. We need the stadia, but it should not just be stadia. We need quality and modern-day type of multi-purpose stadia. Nobody needs to tell us that the stadia facilities that we have in the country are apologies of what modern stadia should be.
Football is a global game. And football teams these days are moving from one country to another where good stadia exist for their training sessions during their off-seasons. As a means of making the game more popular to many more fans, many world-class teams play parts of their home tournament matches outside their own continents. Football is promoting international travel and tourism. And this benefits to a large extent our service industries. Will any foreign team find any of our stadia welcoming enough?.
We are told that the Chinese will help manage the Cape Coast Stadium for the next two years. But what happens after that? It shall be left to us Ghanaians to run and manage. How are we going to do it. The how is not the absence or lack of technical personnel or skills to deliver. The how is the allocation of funds regularly for the maintenance of the facilities at the stadium. Maintenance is not only a culture; it is a regular habit and endeavour which has to be sustained.
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As a people, we should change our attitude and learn to take proper care of what we have. That is how the people we admire so much go about taking good care of their properties and assets.
There are many people who feel that we as Africans are not capable of managing our own affairs although our first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, declared the reverse. We have over time destroyed what we inherited even from our colonial masters. My view is that if we, as a people, cannot keep and maintain what we have, we should put an end to creating new ones. We should rather use the funds for the new projects in properly maintaining the existing ones.
Currently, we are being given television view of many new projects and infrastructure in the form of schools, roads and beautiful buildings. Meanwhile, we appear to have abandoned existing and old ones. We believe in building new schools when the old ones are deteriorating and crying for maintenance and rehabilitation.
It is refreshing to see the new Cape Coast Stadium. But as President Mahama said, he hoped that after five or six years, he would be happy to see that it was well kept and maintained. This is a challenge. Meanwhile, we should ensure that we resolve to repair all the damaged toilets, sinks and score boards at the existing stadia. They belong to us and we should not allow the newly inaugurated Cape Coast Stadium to join them in the league of decaying and rotten stadia in Accra, Kumasi, Sekondi and Tamale.