Publication of Adako Jachie photos: the motives

One of the structures that is being engulfed by weeds

Where did this sub-culture in Kotoko and the Ghanaian society as a whole, where people easily impute wrong motives to genuine actions originate? Why do some of us in Kotoko always have the tendency to assume that, equally devout Kotoko supporters act only to please present or previous administrators of the club? It is mind-boggling.

It is pathetic, especially when some people in the media, who should know better, join the fray to spew their ignorance and lambast well-meaning people for no good reason. That attitude must change, for it serves no productive purpose. Why should we spend copious energy and precious time finding fault, reading ill-motives into people’s actions and what is more, use expensive media platforms to malign well-intentioned people.

Last week, Kotoko Express and www.asantekotokosc.com in their relentless and sincere efforts to serve the interest of the club published pictures of the Adako Jachie projects which have stalled over the last five months. The pictures depicted how the office complex, junior and senior team hostels had been engulfed by weeds and also how iron rods had been left to the mercy of the weather with visible signs of it rusting. I took those pictures on my recent visit to Kumasi.

The weeds are fast overgrowing the office complex

I was moved to Adako Jachie by a candid desire to ascertain what was happening at the site. I was also out to satisfy the curiosity of numerous Kotoko supporters who have been asking questions over what was happening to the projects initiated by the immediate past administration. The photo-taking was followed by an interview with the unassuming Project Manager, George Amponsah-Duodu, who as usual gave me an unpretentious narrative on work at the project site.

In the interest of Kotoko, the pictures were published with a brief story indicating why the project has stopped in addition to the calls by supporters to the leadership of the club to do something about the project. It is not everything that I can share using this medium but reactions to the publication was fascinating. It turned quite disappointing at some point.

These are iron rods are obviously rusting

That the pictures were published to indict the current leadership of Kotoko as remarked in some media discussions surprised me. Again, the discussion no longer sounded surprising when instead of relegating wild Kotoko sentiments to the background, some discussants rather focused on the irrelevancies of Kotoko Express and www.asantekotokosc.com embarrassing Kotoko. How is that possible?

 

Kotoko Express and www.asantekotokosc.com have an inalienable duty to persistently project the image of Kotoko. But in exercising that duty, it is important to add that Kotoko Express and www.asantekotokosc.com cannot gloss over obvious unpleasant developments particularly when those developments have been brought to the notice of the paper by the people we serve in this case the supporters who pay to watch the club play matches and patronize the newspaper the club’s mouthpiece.

Who in this country criticize Kotoko players than Kotoko fans? And who in Ghana eulogize Kotoko players than Kotoko supporters? Kotoko fans have never hesitated to draw the attention of Kotoko managers to situations they find unacceptable in the club. When it is about the Board, they say it. When it is about the management, they say it. When it concerns their coach and players, they don’t allow anything to stand in their way to make their views known.

The iron rods have been left to the mercy of the weather

Even when it is about their own supporters’ groupings – Circles, Ladies, Warriors and Faithfuls, they criticize and praise at the same time. Kotoko Express and www.asantekotokosc.com have customarily been the conduit through which Kotoko supporters’ grievances are channeled with the highest level of circumspection. As a journalist who has been with the paper for nearly a decade, I am aware of the careful balance the paper ensures between working to enhance Kotoko’s image and also highlighting the negatives for immediate attention or remedies.

That is what a responsible club website and newspaper do and that is what Kotoko Express and www.asantekotokosc.com have been doing. Thus the supposition that the pictures the paper published last Friday were to tarnish the leadership of the club is flawed. It is the kind of deduction which every genuine Kotoko fan must reject. Irrespective of who started the project and regardless of who is leading Kotoko now, the project belongs to Kotoko and it is the good of it that all of us must seek. We must learn to remove the speck from our own eyes before we ask others to do the same.