Numekevor’s dismissal …more questions than answers

Dodzie Numekevor

Sacking a person for obvious non-performance is an action that can be applauded by majority of people, maybe except members of the victim’s immediate family, dependents, beneficiaries and other close allies.

If it is obvious that the person is non-performing, why keep him/her there?

An example is when every opposition party in this country called for the immediate sack of then Finance Minister, Mr Ken Ofori Atta. So intense was this call that every negative thing was associated to him. Ghanaians were made to believe that his dismissal will return the country to the right path.

Government was lambasted on a daily basis until he was removed from office. But if one should ask what has changed, those that clamoured for his removal would not tell you much; his removal has come as some relief for them.

It however, becomes a bitter pill to swallow when circumstances around the sack is unclear like the case of the new Director General of the National Sports Authority (NSA), Dr Dodzie Numekevor, whose dismissal on Tuesday came with more questions than answers.

His termination letter from the Office of the President left the sports publics confused because it was silent on reasons for the decision.

Well, in cases when reasons for dismissals are obvious, letters terminating such appointments often assign those reasons as personal.

However, that scheme also leaves doors and windows open for all manner of beliefs or assertions for such an action.

Within a period when the state of football infrastructure in Ghana has dominated the media space following comments by visiting coaches that played in Ghana recently, plus anger by CAF President, Patrice Motsepe, over the absence of at least one football facility to host international football, alluding the decision to the above mentioned problems, becomes an easy thing.

It can be right or otherwise.

Having occupied this office for just six months but becomes a sacrificial lamb for some years of decay supervised by his predecessors is just unfortunate for Dr Numekevor.

Even if he was expected to fix the major infrastructural challenges facing Ghana, he could not have done that within the stipulated time he had.

He inherited Accra, Cape Coast, Tamale and to some extent the Kumasi facility which were in terrible shapes and could do nothing much about them without funding.

It presupposes that the reasons for his sack may be more than Ghana not having one good facility to host a CAF Category 3 matches under his tenure.

Views like his supervision of the hiring of the Baba Yara Stadium – then the only ground with a CAF approval to host matches – for 10 days or so for a church programme have also been expressed and believed to be one of the reasons for his dismissal.

If it was so, then it was a grievous fault and grievously did Numekevor answered it, as captured in Mark Antony’s speech in the book Julius Caesar.

Sadly, Numekevor has suffered this fate for the inefficiencies of his predecessors who stayed in office for longer periods but did nothing worthy of note to avoid the problem we face as a nation.

And as a country, this should be the time to make a policy about the direction to go regarding playing surfaces which always become topical issues when the Black Stars are assembled and pushed back after that assignment.

By Andrew Nortey