A former Chairman of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Dr Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, has warned of some dire ramifications should the FA alter the current tenure of the Presidency.
He said there was a reason why the tenure was limited to two terms; hence, he was ready to fight to ensure resistance to any attempt to change the status quo.
The visibly bemused veteran football administrator, therefore, questioned the rationale for mooting the idea in the first place.
”I feel that is a wrong way to go because it will create a dictatorship, which will rather worsen the performance of the leader,” the firebrand told Graphic Sports in an exclusive interview last Friday.
Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe attributed Kwesi Nyantakyi’s fall as GFA boss to his decision to impose himself in perpetuity and warned the current leaders to learn from that mistake and avoid repeating the same or suffer the consequences.
”One of the reasons why Kwesi Nyantakyi failed was because he allowed the serving of the FA President’s term in the Statutes to be unlimited.
”There are reasons why a timeline is attached to certain positions, that is why presidents are given time to serve.
“That is why in the US when you serve two terms, you don’t serve again, and the same applies to our Constitution here in Ghana,” he explained.
”I’ll fight anybody who will say it should be changed from two terms to three terms in our Constitution as far as Ghana is concerned,” he stated.
The Hearts of Oak board member questioned whether the decision to extend the tenure was a result of the failure on the part of the current leadership.
He stressed that if the GFA Congress believed the Kurt Okraku-led leadership had done well, their mandate should be renewed; if they think otherwise, they should be rejected.
”Has the present leadership failed? If it has failed then when they go to elections they should vote him out; if he has not failed, then he should continue. So why bring it from two terms to three terms, for what?” Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe queried.
He stated that if a leader was unable to perform in his first term, it would be difficult for him to even perform in the second term and wondered about the basis for proposing a third term when Kurt Okraku had barely finished his first term.
He described whoever was nurturing that idea as irresponsible, insisting that Ghana was practising democracy, which must cut across every sphere of our lives as a country. He explained further that the two terms for the President was agreed upon for a reason.
‘I have nothing against taking such a suggestion to Congress but I believe one mistake Nyantakyi made, particularly those who drafted that bad constitution that was thrown away, was to make the FA chairmanship position unlimited.
”We know how people behave in this country when it comes to elections so the moment you change the constitution that way then you want a dictator.
“That is why, unfortunately, Nyantakyi went through what he went through. So if that Committee takes it to Congress and they approve it then that is their own palava,” he added.
Source: Modern Ghana
