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