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Let’s support the 2023 Ghana African Games
It is less than two years left for Ghana to welcome more than 5,000 athletes from over 50 countries to the African Games. It would be Ghana’s first Games, 56 years since it roared off in Congo Brazzaville.
The nation’s pace of preparations has come under a barrage of criticisms, with many wondering whether the desired facilities including an ultra-modern Olympic-size stadium would be ready for the Games in 2023.
Number without count, Dr Kwaku Ofosu Asare, Chairman of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the 2023 African Games, has indicated strappingly the nation’s readiness to oblige the continent to the 13th quadrennial festival.
Without any shred of doubt, there is a huge workload on the shoulders of the Organising Committee and its stakeholders to make the Games an engaging reality.
With the nation’s sporting infrastructure nothing to write home about as compared to our North African neighbours, it is important that we support the LOC to achieve its target.
Indeed, with the Government determined to claw back the halcyon days of Ghanaian sports, in athletics, boxing, football and table tennis, the provision of the requisite infrastructure, to this end, is critical if our nation is to recapture its pride of place in sports on the continent and in the world.
True, hosting the Games will afford Ghana the opportunity to address capacity deficiencies, by providing the relevant human resource capacity to run and manage sports in Ghana. The state-of-the-art sporting facilities, importantly, will support the development of sports as the Games serve as a pathway to reorganise less-financed sports in the country.
Apart from football, boxing and athletics, which are noted as big sporting disciplines in Ghana, over 25 other sporting disciplines are classified as ‘lesser-known’ or less-financed sports because of the lack of financial support and interest from government and the public – and the Games would be a perfect opportunity to realise the potential of these sports to make them burly disciplines.
For instance, the Games will produce a 1,000-seater multi-purpose sports hall for badminton, boxing, volleyball, and weightlifting, and five tennis courts complex including 1,000 centre courts. This should be a great heritage and huge elevation for the often disregarded disciplines in Ghana.
Obviously, that is not to say we should not whip the Committee into line when they go off beam or fail to live up to expectation. Members on the Committee are worth their salt and have to prove that mettle by wearing the skin off their hands to produce one of the finest Games ever in the annals of the multi-sports Pan African festival.
Member of the Committee, Ms Eva Okyere, may have put it more appropriate when she urged the media to treat the Ghana 2023 Games as a national project without any political colouration, “even as you go about your professional duties of keeping the LOC on its toes.” Great call!
We cannot wait for Ghana 2023. Let us prop up the effort, and make it a grand success story.
By John Vigah
President John Dramani Mahama has commissioned four career diplomats as ambassador-designates to represent Ghana in four countries.
The commissioning ceremony took place on Friday, October 16, 2026.
The new envoys are Her Excellency Nana Antwiwaa Dodoo, Ambassador-Designate to Angola; His Excellency Louis Kwame Obeng, Ambassador-Designate to Qatar; Her Excellency Evelyn Korantemaa Ofosu-Amable, Ambassador-Designate to Israel; and His Excellency Jedidiah Reuben Adogla, Permanent Representative-Designate to Switzerland.
President Mahama charged them to advance Ghana’s national interests through strategic partnerships, economic diplomacy, investment mobilization, and expanded access to international markets.
He said Ghana’s diplomatic engagements must deliver tangible economic benefits, create jobs, and strengthen the country’s standing on the international stage.
The four envoys are career diplomats with over 27 years of experience.
On behalf of her colleagues, Her Excellency Nana Antwiwaa Dodoo thanked the President for the confidence reposed in them and pledged their commitment to emulate his leadership and deliver on the mandate given to them.
By Edem Mensah-Tsotorme
The professor who spends his days exploring the intricacies of African languages found himself at the centre of a different kind of lesson on Friday, October 2, 2026. 
This time, there were no lecture notes, academic arguments or university classrooms. Instead, there was the weight of tradition, the rhythm of a community celebration and the solemnity of an oath at a royal palace.
Professor Ọbádélé Kambon, a full Professor of African Linguistics at the University of Ghana, was enstooled as Apagyahene and Sunsum Ɔsahene of Akuapem Mampong in the Eastern Region in a ceremony that brought academia and traditional authority together.
For the professor, the occasion was more than a new title. It was a moment that connected his academic interests in African languages and indigenous knowledge with the living traditions of an Akan community.
The day’s events unfolded through a series of customary observances. Kambon was first taken to the compounds of the Ɔkyeamehene and Gyasehene, where the preparations for his installation continued.
Then came the application of hyire, the white kaolin powder associated with traditional rites.
With the customary proceedings underway, the new chief was lifted onto the shoulders of celebrants and carried along the main thoroughfare of Akuapem Mampong.
The procession transformed the streets into a public stage for a ceremony rooted in the community’s traditional institutions.
There was something striking about the image, a university professor, accustomed to the measured language of academic discourse, being carried through the town in a display of traditional recognition.
Yet the celebration was not complete with the procession.
A ram was sacrificed at the Mamponghene’s compound before Kambon was taken to the palace, to swear the oath associated with his new offices.
The ceremony brought him formally into his roles as Apagyahene and Sunsum Ɔsahene.
Beyond the colourful proceedings, the titles themselves carry layers of historical meaning.
Kambon in his research explores the historical connections between Apagya and Akan political and military organisation.
Accounts cited in his work linked Apagya to an asafo, or military company, while historical writing traces an Apagya stool in Asante to the reign of Opoku Ware I in the eighteenth century.
These historical associations offer a glimpse into the institutions that have shaped Akan society over generations, although they do not automatically define the precise responsibilities of the office in Akuapem Mampong.
Kambon’s own professional life reflects a similar interest in preserving and examining African knowledge.
His work encompasses Akan language structure, naming practices across the Black world, proverbs and indigenous intellectual traditions.
Through Abibitumi, the platform he founded, he also promotes language learning, scholarship and cultural engagement.
But tradition was only one part of the story that day.
When the formal ceremony gave way to a reception, the occasion expanded into a celebration of three milestones: Kambon’s enstoolment, his promotion to full professor and his daughter Ama’s admission to the University of Ghana.
The gathering therefore carried a personal significance that went beyond the honours bestowed on one man. 
It celebrated professional advancement, the continuation of family aspirations and a connection to cultural heritage.
For a father, seeing a daughter gain admission to the same university where he holds a distinguished academic position offered another reason to celebrate.
For the professor, the moment placed family achievement alongside his own professional and traditional milestones.
Kambon had already established a place in the traditional life of Akuapem Mampɔn through an earlier installation as Banmuhene Kyidɔmhene, recorded in 2017.
His latest enstoolment adds another chapter to that relationship.
In Akuapem Mampɔn, the day brought together the university, the palace and the family table in one celebration. And for Kambon, the journey from the lecture room to the traditional procession showed how scholarship, cultural responsibility and family achievement could converge in a single memorable occasion.
By Enoch Ntiamoah Siaw
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