Watch Out Mr. President: Hosting AFCON 2015 Is A Matter Of Life And Death For Ghanaians...

Your Excellency Hon. John Dramani Mahama President of the Republic of Ghana Accra. Dear Sir, OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF GHANA The Sports Minister Mahama Ayariga is reported to have announced that Ghana is ready to host the AFCON 2015. Your Excellency, if your Government, in spite of the protestations, goes ahead to host the AFCON 2015, you will go down in history as the most insensitive President the country has ever had. The issues are that, � Morocco, the original host with all its better medical facilities, at least better than in Ghana, has decided not to go ahead with the tournament because of the dreaded disease, Ebola. � South Africa where our Presidents and Ministers go for medical attention has emphatically told CAF that they cannot host the games for the same Ebola reason, � Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa is not interested. If all these countries have shown no interest in AFCON 2015 because of Ebola, why should our dear country, Ghana that is still plagued with CHOLERA in this 21st Century offer to host the games with the threat of Ebola looming on the country? Who is Issa Hayatou and this sovereign nation of ours cannot say NO to him? Already, Archbishop Duncan Williams has told us that God has revealed to him that the Spirit of Ebola will enter Ghana in November. He and his church have therefore started praying for the country. What he does not know is that many Ghanaian Christians have started praying for Ghana against Ebola long before the WHO declared it epidemic. What the Archbishop wants to tell Ghanaians is that if the Ebola enters Ghana, he has told us. If it does not, then his prayers have been answered. If in spite of all the protestations, your Government goes ahead to host the AFCON in 2015, then my conviction of your government would have been confirmed. My conviction is that your government knows it has failed Ghanaians and has no legacy for the people than a $20million Party Head Office, misery and pain for the people and a mangled economy. Hosting the Africa Games with the chance of Ghana winning the Africa Cup will be the only legacy your Government will leave Ghanaians. Ghana has already submitted a bid for the AFCON 2017. Are we going to host the AFCON 2015 and then go ahead to host the 2017 games? I do not believe that you have forgotten that we have submitted a bid for the 2017 games. If we win the bid for the 2017 games after having hosted the 2015 games, then Ghana will go into the history books as the only country to have organized the AFCON games on two successive occasions. That will surely be the pride of your government. I do not think that you believe that Ghanaians would prefer Ghana hosting the AFCON games with the possibility of �Ebola� entering the country to your Government solving the �dumsor, dumsor� situation once and for all. Honestly, if your Government is concerned about the health and well-being of Ghanaians, the economic hardship the people of Ghana are facing today, a situation that was created entirely by your Government�s own recklessness and mismanagement of the economy, then the hosting of the AFCON 2015 is one request from CAF that you should have declined with alacrity. You know Mr. Kwasi Nyantekyi is a young man whose ambition is to become the next CAF President and therefore he would be prepared to lick the boots of Issa Hayatou to achieve his ambition. It seems to me that after recklessly mismanaging the economic and creating the harshest economic conditions for Ghanaians, you now want to turn to massacre the people by deliberately importing �Ebola� to Ghana. Well your Government can go ahead to host the AFCON 2015 but you must not forget is that: � Your Government in August announced a freeze on international conferences and public gatherings as part of measures to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola virus into Ghana. What has made you to change your mind just within two months? Between International Conferences and AFCON, which event is more likely to import Ebola into Ghana? � Morocco and South Africa are thousands of miles away from the epicentre of the Ebola epidemic. These have better medical facilities than we have. Here we are in Ghana so close to Liberia with very porous borders. Considering the number of people involved in the AFCON tournaments who would stay with us for at least one month, how do we hope to cope with the situation with our limited medical facilities? � According to the medical people, Ebola has a gestation period of 21 days. This means that some people may leave their countries with the virus. The virus may not be detected at the borders. May be it will be half way in the games before the virus will be detected in some of the fans. It will be too late by that time and it will be too late to track all the Ghanaians they may have come into contact with. � I read on the net that the driver of the Minister of Health of Liberia called his boss and reported that he had contracted the disease. The boss went into quarantine immediately and the driver died the following day. I do not know whether the Minister is dead. What I want to say is that your Government can go ahead to bring the AFCON 2015 to Ghana but you should not forget that Ebola is no respecter of persons. Your Excellency, Mr. John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana, the issue of Ghana hosting AFCON 2015 is a matter of life and death for Ghanaians. I am pleading with you to authorize Hon. Mahama Ayariga to cease immediately any negotiations with Issa Hayatou on the AFCON 2015 issue to save us from dying of Ebola.