The once vibrant Nkawkaw Sports Stadium located at Nkawkaw in the Eastern Region is now a maize farm.
The stadium served as playing grounds for football giants that won the 1982 African Cup of Nations hosted in Libya.
Other giants who trained and perfected their play on the same stadium are Tony Yeboah, Charles Kwabena Akonnor, Edward Opeile Aboagye, Wisdom Abbey and Abdul Fatau Dauda.
This same field made the local team, Okwawu United such a formidable team that it reached the semi-final of WAFU tournament in 1991.
The Nkawkaw Sports Stadium was built in the 1970s under the sports-loving head of state – Ignatius Kutu Acheampong – who made his Special Assistant, Lt. Col. Simpe-Asante, also in charge of Sports.
Col. Simpe-Asante built Nkawkaw Stadium into a field for athletics including football, with a capacity of over 5,000.
But, today, the same Nkawkaw Sports Stadium is in an unbelievably sorry state.
When the usual Ghanaian culture of no-maintenance set in, the once green turf began to turn into an evergreen forest.
Nomadic herdsmen have made the place recreational grounds for their cattle. Refuse dump was what some others chose.
The land came under serious threat from encroachers who wanted to put up buildings there. Then, the curator of the stadium deemed it less offensive to turn the Nkawkaw Sports Stadium into a maize farm.
But, what do duty-bearers say about the neglect of a public good worth millions of Ghana Cedis? We approached Kofi Debrah Woode who is care-taker at the stadium and he disclosed that the area for the maize farm was once a forest and has to be cleared for the planting of the maize.
Mr Woode bemoaned the neglect by authorities as he sometimes have to fund activities to ensure good maintenance with his own resources.
Nkawkaw and Kwawu people in general are very much concerned about the stadium neglect but seem helpless.
They described the situation as an insult to the people as leaders sit unconcerned to address the sorry state of the stadium.
They say that the neglect of the stadium is affecting sporting and economic activities in area.
Source: Adomonine.com | Adom News |Kodwo Mensah Aborampah |
