Akpokavie takes over GHA
A Tema-based private legal practitioner, Mr. Richard Akpokavie, was last Saturday elected unopposed as president of the Ghana Hockey Association (GHA).
Advertisement
He takes over from Mr. Oko-Nikoi Dzani, a chartered accountant, who stepped down after 15 years.
A member of the famous national under-20 hockey team, which conquered Africa and mesmerised the world in France in 1978, Mr Akpokavi, was the overwhelming favourite of the delegates, who formed the Electoral College at the association’s congress.
He was expected to have been challenged by the deposed Greater Accra Hockey Association, chairman, Frank Awuku, but the latter finally opted out.
But the battle for the vice president position was full of drama after veteran Dennis Amoa-Ababio (Dracula) forced the race into a second round after surprisingly tying seven votes apiece with the favourite and former chairman of the Ashanti Region, James Amoo-Gotfried.
Amoo-Gotfried won by 10 to four votes and joins Mr Akpokavie, treasurer, Elizabeth King, two ordinary members, Kweku D. Adjei Asante and Kwame Owusu plus a representative each from Greater Accra, Eastern and Brong Ahafo regions to complete the eight-man team.
The new excutives were jointly sworn in by the president of the Ghana Olympic Committee, Prof Francis Dodoo and Oko-Nikoi Dzani.
Under his 15 years in office, Ataa Oko helped to provide the sport with two artificial turfs, which transformed the game completely.
Other Trending Stories
The first was a sand-based in 1999 and six months into office of President John Evans Atta Mills in 2009, Oko-Nikoi Dzani lobbied for the country’s only hockey stadium to be built in Accra to host the ninth Africa Hockey Nations Cup.