Prosecute the Black Stars!

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

In the wake of the all-to-be-expected loss of Ghana’s national soccer team, the Black Stars, to the Chipolopolo Boys of Zambia, sex workers in Lusaka and other cities, towns and villages in Zambia were widely reported to have offered free services to both regular and potential johns as their patriotic contribution to the epic feat of their national soccer team (See “Zambia Prostitutes Offer Free Sex to Celebrate their Win Over Ghana” Spyghana.com 2/9/12).

It was also quite amusing to hear Zambia’s Coach Herve Renard boast that “Zambia has told the world[,] through the beating of the Black Stars[,] that Ghana are [sic] still toddlers.” Obviously, the Zambian prostitutes and their johns, or customers, do not appear to be in agreement with Coach Herve’s vaunt. Still, I want the Black Stars to be thoroughly prosecuted for flagrantly causing a potentially remarkable rise in the HIV-Aids epidemic that has ravaged that southern African country.

It also goes without saying that in the opinion of the Zambians, when it comes to soccer – or association football – on the primeval continent, Ghana is definitely the team to beat. For my part, though, it was all-too-natural for the Black Stars to lose, primarily because like most of their countrymen and women, the Stars have yet to fully appreciate the fact that success and victory come with discipline and emotional poise and maturity. The very way and manner in which both the Stars and their fellow Ghanaians seemed to have been almost irreparably intoxicated with indescribable elation over Tunisia’s loss to Ghana during the quarter-finals of the African Cup of Nations, once again, convinces me that Ghanaians have a very long way to go before being able to credibly ever speak of the possibility of lifting the World Cup. This most enviable feat would, of course, entail the Black Stars’ being able to definitively wean themselves of the jaded and decided frivolity of obstreperous indulgence in “entertainment soccer” to the incontrovertibly savvy and pragmatic level of goal-scoring.

And as a good friend said to me in the wake of Ghana’s loss to Zambia, the Black Stars need to train a viable pool of striker-specialists and stop its seemingly inordinate reliance on jaded all-purpose players like Asamoah Gyan. On quite a sound note, however, I also felt that the Zambians clearly needed to triumph over the pathologically complacent Ghanaian side, being that the Chipolopolo Boys’ victory comes nearly twenty years after the entire membership of the Zambian national team was tragically wiped out in a plane crash on its way to the Senegalese capital of Dakar for a World-Cup qualifier in 1993. Then also, I felt that the Mills-led government of the so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC) was too corrupt to be graced with a continental victory. Besides, his much-touted avid interest in the game and all, President Mills has not in the past demonstrated the kind of inspiring leadership worthy of the production of world-class soccer players and heroes. On this score, Messrs. Nkrumah and I. K. Acheampong stand in a class all by themselves!

In Zambia’s “patriotic” prostitution orgy – I prefer to call it an outrage – we also learn that most of the johns who coitally feasted with the sex-workers did not use prophylactics or condoms, which prompted a reportedly ogling bystander by the name of Mike Tembo to pray for the free supply of condoms “so that we can protect our young men,” come the final match between Zambia and Cote d’Ivoire. This, of course, is predicated on the assumption that Zambia will emerge as the victor.

For now, Ghanaians can take solace in the fact that this year’s African Cup has a great chance of being housed next door. And on the latter score, of course, what I am talking about is the need for the Ghanaians to vicariously and punitively throw their weight and support behind the Ivorians. After all, don’t we both share the same neighborhood and membership in the Economic Community of West African States?

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is Director of The Sintim-Aboagye Center for Politics and Culture and author of “Dorkordicky Ponkorhythms” (iUniverse.com, 2004). E-mail: [email protected]. ###