It was a cold winter’s night in Cardiff, UK, five thousand miles from the soft and calm bosom of my mother in Ghana. I was to spend the next year chasing a dream qualification, a communications degree from Cardiff University.
On the way to the Kotoka International Airport five months earlier, I had brushed off suggestions from my Dad that I would soon be missing home. When I stepped foot on this Welsh land, the resolve was still fresh, nothing could convince me that the burning desire for higher education will in anyway be made difficult by the love to sit behind a bowl of fufu and aponkye krakra (Goat meat soup) served before my skinny body by a loving mum.
I had hit a jackpot, a scholarship, and nothing would be allowed to interfere with my studies for the next 12 months, a big man like me should easily sail through a year without missing home…well…so I thought.
It’s been five months of intense classes and assignments, temperatures well below freezing, over indulgence in fish and chips taking a toll. Everyday was lonelier, not even the presence of my three Ghanaians housemates, nor the regular calls and chats with folks back in Ghana could water down the strongest desire I’ve ever had to be home.
Suddenly I found the importance of the scorching sun I so complained about back in Ghana, its bitter cold, a few seconds of sunshine felt like heaven.
It was the finale of the 2015 edition of the African Cup of Nations football tournament that cold winters night. An uncle invited me and one other housemate to watch the match in his home.
Certainly its football, a pack of cold beer was neatly tacked in a corner of the room to take us through the game, a bottle of red wine reserved. It would be the celebratory drink if Ghana, after over three decades managed to beat West African neighbour Ivory Coast to clinch the elusive title.
Players assembled on the field, national anthems to be played before commencement. The Ghana National Anthem began with the strong and powerful beginning “God Bless Our Homeland Ghanaâ€. Like a jolt of lightning lifting me off my seat in an involuntary action, I found myself up, right hand on chest, singing so loudly along, my eyes filled with tear of joy. At the end of the anthem, tears were streaming down my cold winter battered face.
I had watched football several times in Ghana, and frankly I had never be moved in anyway by the national anthem played before the matches began. Neither had I bothered to attach any emotion to the game since 2010, when Asamoah Gyan blew over the goal post a penalty, that would have taken us to the semi-finals of the Worldcup.
Things were different this time though, the sound of my national anthem and the sight of a hoisted flag had overwhelmed my emotions and rekindled the pride in my heart as a Ghanaian, after being away for only five months. I realised then, the powerful effect of national symbols when one is far away from home and the importance of the symbols of State to my identity, pride and ego as Ghanaian.
Last week President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo received his Gambian counterpart at the Jubilee house. Behind the President was the Ghanaian flag, red, gold, green with a black star, this time redesigned. It was green, gold, red with a black star.
I recalled the emotional national anthem of the AFCON and asked my proud Ghanaian soul two questions, “How would I have felt that fateful day, had the anthem been played upside down? How would I have felt, had the colours of the flags, flown on the field during the anthem were in an upside down order?
The disappointment would have been immense, I would have been incensed and cursed whoever was responsible for the blunder, no matter the reason for which he/she had to mess up my anthem and flag.
A careful look at the flag behind the President tells me the national symbol is not hanged wrongly, it rather twisted around the post in a way that turned the colours the other way round. This notwithstanding, the bottom line is the flag was upside down. I can perhaps forgive a foreigner for mixing up the colours, but the seat of government, The Jubilee House, hell no.
Any reasons State Protocol puts up for the grave error, won’t cut it. Conscious efforts were made to turn the flag in such a way the black star was conspicuous, why was similar efforts not put into ensuring the colours were in their rightful positions?
Yes, flag upside down, so what?...Well it’s upside down so my national identity and pride has been desecrated by the very institution tasked to uphold it at all times and in all places. My heart has sunk, my ego is bruised, perhaps Theodosia Selome Okoh is turning angrily in her grave and my president has been rendered a laughing stock by no fault of his, because of the actions of some State officials who were not vigilant enough to do the right thing.
State protocol should be ashamed of the gaffe, please don’t come and tell us the wind blew it, the meeting was held indoors, don’t even attempt to defend it, just render an unqualified apology to Ghanaians and make sure you get things right moving forward.