Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah - Ghana will be the target in Brazil
For close to four years now, The Mirror has made several attempts to have a chat with the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, dating back to when he was the Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development.
He had always declined the request of the paper to engage him in a chat, but he never gave any reason for turning down the request from The Mirror.
Last Friday, January 24, 2014, I called the minister again and explained to him that The Mirror needed to talk to him because there were a number of important issues about sports and his political life that Ghanaians needed to know.
He hesitated and then asked me to send him a text message on Sunday, January 26, 2014 to remind him so that he gives me an appointment.
I did just that but there was no response from his end.
On Monday morning when I reported for work, I was getting agitated because I had assured my boss that the paper would definitely have the minister’s profile for the weekend.
Just when I was thinking of the next line of action I received the much awaited call from the minister, Mr Afriyie-Ankrah, asking me to come over to his house between 3.30 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Tuesday, January 28, 2014.
The usual African ‘stretchable time’ took the better part of me and therefore I delayed slightly. But by the time I got to the minister’s residence at Ridge, he was there ready for me.
We exchanged pleasantries; I congratulated him on his new role and then went straight and engaged him in a chat.
The over one-hour chat covered a number of questions about his elevation, the qualification of the Black Stars to Brazil, his life as a politician and several other personal questions.
He gave the expected answers and created some humour to spice the chat.
Mr Afriyie-Ankrah was one of the exuberant young men the late President, John Evans Atta Mills, appointed as deputy ministers in his administration in 2009, after the National Democratic Congress (NDC) won the elections in 2008.
Having served as the Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development diligently, he was one of the lucky ones who were elevated to full ministerial status.
Mr Afriyie-Ankrah, under whose tenure the senior national team, the Black Stars, have qualified for a third successive appearance at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, is very excited by the feat chalked up by the team.
He is so proud that besides overseeing the overall attainment of goals set for the team, the minister also played a significant role in ensuring the team’s qualification.
He explained that each time the team had a match, the President encouraged him and the team to deliver.
“I always made sure I joined the players in the dressing room to pray, sing and motivate them to qualify. At a point when the going got tough as a result of some point deductions that enabled Zambia to increase its points build-up and narrow the gap between them and Ghana to one point, we got a bit worried but with collaboration with the Ghana Football Association and support from the President, we got some of the senior players such as Andre Dede Ayew, Jordan Ayew, Michael Essien, Kevin Prince Boateng, among others who had not been part of the team for sometime, to return to the fold of the Stars, which made a lot of difference, especially the walloping of Egypt 6-1 in Kumasi.”
Throwing some light on his expectation of the team in Brazil, Mr Afriyie-Ankrah said, “ Everything will depend on the preparation, since ‘input defines output’. Before we played Egypt, the team had trained for seven days instead of the usual three or four days camping and it paid off.”
He said he had no doubt about the ability, capacity, skills and focus of the players but “ we need to prepare them physically, mentally, psychologically, spiritually and tactically. When these things are put in place the sky will be our limit”.
Mr Afriyie-Ankrah is impressed with the profile of majority of the team’s players who are plying their trade in some of the big leagues in Europe, coupled with our performance in the last two World Cups. “definitely we will be the target, especially considering the group in which we find ourselves, which has been tagged the ‘Group of death’.”
He believes the team can make a headway from the group no matter the situation and added that “even though Germany and Portugal would want to prove that they were once world champions and a dominant force when it comes to football, we will remain focus and take them on step by step. When we do all these and seek the face of God, our efforts will be rewarded”.
He, however, mentioned the need to prepare well for God to bless our efforts.
Sponsorship of fans to Brazil
Touching on the ongoing debate on the sponsorship of football fans to Brazil to cheer the team up, the minister admits that the cost of sponsoring fans to Brazil is high and therefore there is a limit to how many fans would be sent there.
He pointed out that it would be suicidal not to send fans to Brazil because this could possibly make the Black Stars appear like orphans.
He said the government had a responsibility to send a sizable number of core supporters to Brazil.
Performances of lesser sports
The minister, who promised during his parliamentary vetting in 2009 that he was not going to place emphasis on football alone but develop the lesser sports as well, admitted that there had been financial challenges which he said were a major drawback.
He, however, said “ last year, we recorded an unprecedented number of medal haul in the lesser sports, such as badminton, swimming, weightlifting, kick boxing and the Deaf Team winning silver in Nigeria, among others”.
Challenges
He said the ministry was one of the few that were always under public scrutiny. It has 36 different federations with varied interests.
“The Ghana Football Association (GFA) itself is a whole constituency because football is the passion of the nation. My ministry is the only ministry which has the over 200 television, radio and newspapers in the country with their lenses focused on it and discussed at least 400 times across the country daily. If the news is good or bad they will amplify it. When there is no news, they will create the news and it will definitely be bad news,” he lamented.
He added that “having served at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (where there were more resources and most of the activities and projects were donor-funded) to a ministry where the budgetary allocation is not enough, it requires dynamism and creative thinking to get things going”.
According the minister, he is collaborating with the Ministry of Finance and the Ghana Revenue Authority to grant tax holidays to corporate institutions that sponsor sporting activities. He said that provision was only in principle but it had not been fully implemented and that served as a disincentive to these institutions.
Entry into politics
Mr Afriyie-Ankrah, a product of the University of Ghana, happens to be one of the few student leaders to have served as SRC President for two years between 1994 and 1996 ala University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) strike action, which lasted a year.
He is known to have led 11 alutas during his presidency. After his tenure as SRC president, Mr Afriyie-Ankrah served as the Co-ordinating Secretary of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) between 1996 and 1997.
Taking a look at the achievements he had chalked up during his student activist days, he assumed he could make it big on the national political landscape.
As a result of this exaggerated impression about his political clout, Mr Afriyie-Ankrah contested the 2000 parliamentary election in the Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency on the ticket of the NDC but lost miserably to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate, Mr Isaac Amoo.
He said considering his rich background and eloquence “I thought my victory was a forgone conclusion”.
According to him, during the campaign, some of the people in the constituency told him they admired him for his depth of knowledge and brilliance but they were not going to vote for him because they did not like the party on whose ticket he stood.
Back to school
Mr Afriyie-Ankrah went back to school between 2001 and 2002 for his Master’s programme at LECIA, University of Ghana.
“I later applied to work with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), but was later persuaded by Mr Ato Ahwoi, an elder of the NDC, to abandon that idea and improve on my political credentials.”
He thus joined the Professor Mills’s campaign team as Deputy Campaign Manager for the presidential primaries for the 2004 elections, where he was challenged by Dr Kwesi Botchwey, a former Finance Minister.
“I continued to remain in that position while the party campaigned for the 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections and travelled all over the country with Prof. Mills and his team.”
Mr Afriyie-Ankrah later contested for the Deputy General Secretary (Operations) position of the NDC in 2005 and won.
“I was instrumental in the operational activities of the NDC which instituted the Setting the records straight series during the 2008 campaign which helped the party to recapture power from the NPP.”
He was appointed Deputy Minister in 2009.
According to Mr Afriyie-Ankrah, while preparing for the 2012 elections, Prof. Mills told him six weeks before he died that he was going to be his campaign manager.
“As if by design, after Prof Mills’s death and President Mahama was selected as the presidential candidate, he chose me as his campaign manager.”
He said being the head of the campaign team, he collaborated with the other members of the team and harnessed the abilities of the team which resulted in a resounding victory for the party in the 2012 election.
According to Mr Afriyie-Ankrah, a former lecturer in English and Communications Studies, head of department and a hall master at the University for Professional Studies, (UPSA), Accra his period at the UPSA was the best period in his life.
Birth, education and family life
He was born on January 6, 1967 to Mrs Beatrice Joyce Ankrah, an ophthalmic nurse, who has lived in London for the past 46 years, and Mr John Ampofo Ankrah, now 84, a pharmacist.
Mr Afriyie-Ankrah is the first of three children, Yaw Ampofo Ankrah, a sports journalist, and Mrs Jennifer Amanfu, based in London.
He started school at Dodi Papase in the Volta Region, after her mother had travelled to the United Kingdom when he was just 10 months old to pursue a course after she was awarded a government scholarship.
He was brought to Accra when he turned seven and had stayed with a number of aunties until he entered the Okuapemman Senior High School (Great OKUASS) at Akropong Akuapem, between 1979 and 1984.
Mr Afriyie-Ankrah left for London in 1986 and attended the College of Computing and Electronics. He returned to Ghana in 1988 and sat for the GCE ‘A’ Level that same year.
“Between the period 1988 and 1992, before i entered the university, i was engaged in all kinds of hustling.”
Mr Afriyie-Ankrah is married to Stella, a gender advocate and proprietress of Princeland Academy in Community 11, Tema. They are blessed with three children, David, Daniel and Berlinda Afriyie-Ankrah.
He worships at the Charismatic Evangelistic Ministries and has Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams as his spiritual Godfather.
Working in the gym, martial arts, reading, listening to music are things he enjoys doing if he is free.
Message to youth
He entreats the youth in Ghana to remember that with God all things are possible. Using his life as an example, he said he had a challenging upbringing but with determination he was able to make it.
He advised them not to expect success to be a fast-track affair. One needs to work towards it.
He also encouraged them to read books on personal development and trust in God, the source of every good thing.
