Out and about with David Kyei:

Stop Sympathizing & Start Supporting

30th May 2007

Just as the spots on a leopard does not and will not change no matter how many litres of water and the most powerful washing bleach is used on them, so are some human behaviours that has come to be associated with some individuals in Ghana.

You may be wondering what I am heading towards with this weird introduction, but hey, don’t get hysterical about this piece because as far as I am concerned, I am going to stay on the fringes of the real issues of today and allow you, my august readers, to do the conclusion for themselves.

I am going to leave the conclusion unattended to because like they say, opinions are like noses, everyone has one. The beauty or otherwise of your nose however depends on how you perceive your nose to be.

Still confused huh? Don’t worry because I will soon take you there. I had originally scheduled to title this write up, “From Jarvis, a lesson…”, but since I am not a fan of singing the praises of mortal human beings, but God Almighty, I have chosen to take a more subtle and educative one, hence today’s headline.

If readers will recollect from my piece of last week, I did state somewhere at the tail end of it that “However, Jarvis Peprah continues to earn my respect as a gentleman who understands what it is to be called a supporter of a football club. May we all at least learn from him that being a supporter of a club goes beyond serving in a management position”

Though I still receive calls of encouragement, commendation and criticism from readers, I must say that the section quoted above received much enquiry as to what I was trying to do and achieve by that harmless yet seemingly controversial statement.

Just as I was looking for examples to buttress my reasons for the statement, the events that have taken place this week and especially that of last Tuesday on a local radio station here in Kumasi, Angel Fm, stopped my headache; as more ingredients in the form of the sought after examples came in their droves and bounds.

Sorry if today’s piece is boring you with continual reference to the piece of last week, but as it has been said that a person who fails to learn from the past fails in the future, kindly allow me to once again take a section from last week; “I will like to repeat to all those who had lain ambush for a possible dissolution of the management by Otumfuo so that that they could launch a bid to come back into management that, they would have to wait for the next years to come.

May be they can go back into their radio tantrums to gunner the fun-fool support they have”.

I may have written the above out of joy that the supposed ambush power seekers had been seriously disappointed; I never thought it would not take that long for the guesses I made to come to pass.

I as a person have always had problems handling the issue of some people seeing themselves as the all in all and that without them, Kotoko would be nothing.

That was why I always used every opportunity that comes my way to advise fans of Kotoko not to make people demy-gods, because as the motto of the club states, “Kum apem a, apem bεba”.

Though some peoples’ contribution to the club may be relevant, it did not mean they were indispensable in the club. Kotoko has seen great men and women who in the time past used their own resources to run the affairs of the club to the extent that most of them went bankrupt after that, and yet those alive do not speak and carry themselves about like the way some people whose time of serving Kotoko was fully paid for in the form of remuneration have been behaving lately

Before I start giving the details of my worries today, I will like to state before hand that I know the kind of reaction I would be having from those who would be gladly happy to launch another senseless attack on me. 

They can frame me up with press conferences and stage managed radio reportage from the venue of the media gimmick, but as far as I know, the Good News Bible which’s contents I wholly believe in tells me all about them.

“If you correct conceited people, you will only be insulted. If you reprimand evil people, you will only get hurt. Never correct conceited people, they will hate you for it. But if you correct the wise, they will respect you. Anything you say to the wise will make them wiser. Whatever you tell the righteous will add to their knowledge” (Proverbs 9:7-9)

As I sat my somewhere listening into the Angel Fm’s late morning Sports programme, I was surprised to hear the sublime Jarvis Peprah in an argument with the verbal lose canon, Takyi Arhin, over a tribally tainted statement he made about Brongs and their relationship with Kotoko.

Worrying and dangerous though the statement which Takyi Arhin had earlier on denied ever making sounded, the danger of it was the way Afrifa Yamoah-Ponkoh, a former management member of the Alhaji Nje led IMT of Kotoko, jumped in to first support Takyi Arhin in his argument with Jarvis, who had insisted that the statement by Takyi Arhin was dangerous and that it did not foster better sporting relationship.

It was after his position had been disowned by the in-house panel that he turned around to say Takyi’s statement was a “dangerous one”.

Though his later stand calmed the nerves of most of the listeners, I must say that he would have spared himself the embarrassment that he had to go through from the phone-ins and the text messages sent into the programme, if he had stayed objective and condemned the tribal statement made by his “good friend Takyi Arhin”.

Having had the opportunity to travel to Rwanda on the ticket of Kotoko in 2003, I will say that anyone who thinks there is nothing like a harmless tribal statement should rethink their position.

If a simple statement like “let’s go for the cockroaches” could spark a heinous genocide that led to the loss of millions of innocent lives, I wonder what unguarded statements such as those made by Takyi Arhin can do.

May be a state sponsored trip for Takyi Arhin to Rwanda to see what is in the genocide museum and memorial will give him a clear idea of the kind of thing he wants to bring into the country.

As a personal prescription, I will recommend that Takyi and his ‘friends’ go see the movies ‘Hotel Rwanda’ 1 & 2 and ‘Sometime in April’, and he will rush to seek repentance from his evil thoughts.

On the few occasions that I have met the man in person, I have come to the conclusion that he has a personal problem that bothers on tribalism and so sees any platform as an opportunity to vent his spleen. Since it appears that he is not in any position to behave as a sports man, I would like to recommend to the GFA and their statutes committee to descend hard on this lose canon before he brings untold hardships on the country Ghana.

I understood the passion and zeal with which Jarvis was advancing his argument, because as a Brong himself, no one can question his loyalty to Kotoko and the institution that the club represents. But in a sharp contrast, I think Yamoah’s stands, to say the least, is despicable, unfortunate and above all hate-tainted.

Yes, I say hate-tainted because ever since the management committee of which he, Yamoah Ponkoh, served as a subordinate to Jarvis was dissolved, and the subsequent rise of power of his former boss to the much sought after position of a Kotoko CEO ,even though in acting position, Jarvis has seen no commendation nor appreciation from Yamoah.

Everything he has done or does becomes an abominable act for the latter. First it was “Jarvis has betrayed us…” and now “I have also heard Jarvis say things that also insults my good friend Takyi Arhin…”

Haba! Is that how far people can take their dislike for others to? If the innate dislike for the faithful servant of Kotoko was to be left at that level, I wouldn’t have had any problem. However, there are too many instances that Yamoah has acted openly against the interest of Kotoko and I think it is about time we told him his wrongs in the face and brought him to a deserving order.

For the sake of space and brevity of this piece, I will restrict myself to only two of such utterances and the rest of the issue will be left for you to conclude.

Somewhere last month, there was this issue of a supposed altering of the period of contract between Kotoko and player Osei Akoto. Though he has been there in management position before, Yamoah hastily and without any bases of checking jumped in the frail and described the allegation as “criminal on the part of Kotoko…” He had not seen nor cross-checked with the contract paper to ascertain if the player was saying the truth or otherwise.

Yet, jumping in to chastise Kotoko was so simple for him because he saw it as an opportunity for him to get at Kotoko.

In the second instance, there was this issue raised by officials of King Faisal F/C not too long ago that they were entitled to a percentage of whatever monies Kotoko would be getting from the transfer of Yusif Chibsah to his Israeli club. 

Whilst I was expecting the man to display diplomacy by asking for the details of the Chibsah transfer, he did the unthinkable of a former management member by hastily judging. “Of course, you know, Alhaji Grunsah is entitled to his share of the onward transfer of Chibsah. Kotoko must and should pay the man”.

That was well said, but what surprised me was why the man did not in the first place ask if the transfer sum had been paid to Kotoko.

I wonder why he wanted Kotoko to pay for something that they had not yet received the money.

He may have had his own reason for displaying the kind of attitude he has towards Kotoko, but at least one thing is clear here.

He says he is a sympathizer of Kotoko and so has the right to speak about the things that go on in the club.

It is good that he has identified that he sympathizes with the club, but I will however like to say that it is not enough to be a Kotoko sympathizer. What Kotoko needs today are supporters.

Kotoko needs people who will put their monies where their mouths are. Kotoko needs people who will register with the circles and attend meetings to fashion out policies and strategies that will make Kotoko the team to beat.

The Otumfuo Special Initiative is on and so people who think they have so much power and free licence to talk about Kotoko without restraints should seek to register and contribute to the coffers of the club.

Kotoko does not people who have never been at the club’s matches since their administration was dissolved. I have always said that one does not have to be a management member before he can be a good supporter of the club.

Yamoah has on many occasions quoted the revered Prof. K.A Busia of blessed memory that “one has to have a big stomach to be able to swallow all these…” What he forgets however is that every storage has a specific capacity and so the “big stomach” can get full and explode for the good or worse of it one of these days.

By  David Kyei