Mercenaries or real Ambassadors?
Miss Malaprop. What a name! Noted for her propensity to misname one thing or the other, she earned the dubious distinction of a word, malapropistic, named after her in the dictionary!
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It would be interesting to hear what she would say today, if she were around. Would she describe mercenaries as ambassadors? I wonder. She may not be around, but her spirit lives on. It may have inhabited the ambitious Youth & Sports Minister, Nii Lante Vanderpuye.
I could not believe it when some ‘mercenaries’, purporting to be ambassadors, were so outdoored by the Sports Minister last week. Let's get it straight. That is malapropistic.
I know who is an ambassador. I am Christ's ambassador, evident in my work and in my dealings with people, straight as an arrow.
Again, my dad, a career diplomat, was Ghana's Ambassador with concurrent accreditation to Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, actively serving the interests of Ghana there from 1976 till 1982 when he retired.
Recently, too, my sister became the 2014 Vlisco Ambassador for the Year, actively promoting their brand interests. So, I really know who qualifies as an ambassador, and neither Nana Aba Anamoah, a famous anchor and a notable Manchester United fanatic, nor Sandra Ankobiah, a lawyer doubling as a media woman, qualify yet as ambassadors for women's football in Ghana.
Until a few weeks, ago, when the Sports Minister ensured a small percentage of their outstanding bonuses were paid, the Black Queens (the women's senior national football team) had not only not been paid but had also been intimidated and humiliated by the immediate past sports minister, Dr. Mustapha Ahmed.
Yet, I did not hear either of these ambassadors condemn the injustice in our land which touts freedom and justice; neither did the pair gave audience to the afflicted athletes; and neither did I hear either beat drums to sound out a sustained campaign to seek justice for their fellow women. I am listening.
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That would have qualified either lady as a bonafide ambassador for not only women football, but more importantly as activists for equal recognition of women at the workplace and wage war against wage discrimination based on gender.
That should be the perfect role for the two ladies, especially the role of the lawyer becoming more pronounced in seeking legislation to back that great cause.
As it stands now, since they would directly profit financially from the Black Queens' cause, they are not ambassadors; they are mercenaries ready to cash in on the fiscal needs of neglected women footballers in the country. Women taking from other women neglected by men? Now, that is indefensible!
Still indefensible is the fact that the glorious Black Queens have not been recognised at the Flagstaff House by President John Mahama, as he did the inglorious Black Stars for losing the AFCON 2015 championship, were player was handsomely rewarded by the state.
Would these ambassadors instead fight for recognition for the Black Queens' by the state as gold medallists at the 2015 All Africa Games?
If it is an attempt to create comedy, it is not funny. If it is an attempt to dodge the real issue of unequal recognition, unfair compensation and wage discrimination, it is short of class.
It is a slippery slope, Nii Lante. Leave the path of your predecessor, Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, whose similar undertaking during Ghana’s Brazil 2014 FIFA World Cup campaign brought him disgrace and cost him his job at the ministry, and led to the establishment of a Presidential Commission of Enquiry to probe the ill-fated campaign in Brazil.
Also, Nii Lante must fight for the right of equality for the Black Queens to be given official recognition by the state at the Flagstaff House, to symbolise a historic culture-shift in accepting the female athletes as the equal to their male counterparts.
That would make you the real deal, an icon, a bonafide ambassador of women sports.