Keep records of past events …Justice Amadu Tanko urges sports administrators
Justice of the Supreme Court (JSC) of Ghana, Issifu Omoro Amadu Tanko has admonished sports administrators in the country to begin to keep records of remarkable national sporting events, as it was the only way the country can reflect on the past and chart a proper course for the future.
“Record keeping of our sporting activities, heroes and heroines is nothing to write home about presently and this is one very sad development that if not nipped in the bud would leave a bleak future and generations yet unborn would have nothing to fall on in telling stories of the past.
Justice Amadu Tanko, who spoke to Times Sports after swearing in the newly-elected GHALCA executives, said building up institutional record of our sporting events was one very important attribute of a nation that has its heroes and heroines at heart.
“Today when one walks into a place like the National Sports Authority (NSA) to search for records of pictures, videos and write-ups of celebrated former national stars, sports administrators among others, nothing would be found and this is very unfortunate for us as a country.
“If I want something on the celebrated India merchant, philanthropist and table tennis player and coach D. G. Hathiramani who arrived in the Gold Coast in the late 1940s, naturalised as a Ghanaian and was very instrumental in establishing the game of table tennis in Ghana, I would have nothing on him.
“My own Ghana Football Association (GFA) which I served is not to be left out in this situation. There is next to no records of past national stars like Kwasi Owusu, Jones Attuquayefio, Opoku Afriyie and Abedi Ayew Pele among others,” he noted.
He said between 1999 and 2008, he served as the Disciplinary Committee and Appeals Committee chairman of the GFA and also the Legal Committee, Grievance, Dispute and Disciplinary Committee chairman of Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC).
“But if I go to the GFA and GOC today and ask that I want records of my decisions certified, I would get negative answers. In this computer age, this cannot be accepted at all. These institutions are the chieftains of our sports and if they do not have institutional records of their own then we are doomed.”
According to Justice Amadu Tanko, it is not late as the nation can start building from those in active service today “so that tomorrow we can have something to show for what happened today.”
“I met and told the GFA president Kurt Okraku that this is the time to start building up institutional records of our game, and that he should create a desk at the GFA and as far as possible they should start recollecting records of videos, still pictures and information about the history of the Ghana Black Stars and the other national teams.
“Same should be done by the NSA and the GOC as well, because they are the ones who go to institutions for such things,” he added.
Justice Tanko further called on the present young journalists to also take up record keeping as a project because it will sell.
“It is commercial. It can become merchandised and earn you some cash.”
BY RAYMOND ACKUMEY
