No tears for Ghana who brought misery upon themselves

In Africa, we believe that, if you want to go quickly, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.

Our diversity, ineptness and clumsiness notwithstanding, we have learnt to pull together at all times; in good times as well as bad times.

It matters not. But after a closer look, it only happens in an ideal situation, because in reality, it’s the stack opposite.

It’s an every man for himself and God for us all kind of mentality.

In his book, The Origin Of Species: By Means of Natural Selection, Charles Darwin sums unity and oneness as, “…it is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively, have prevailed…” Judging by his astute words, he must have had Ghana’s national football team in mind.

Coming into this World Cup, the Ghanaians were a divided house.

Every player was pulling towards his own side. The fact that they were there as continent’s representatives, didn’t help matters.

When flop Kevin Prince Boateng wasn’t fighting his coach Kwesi Appiah, then it was Sulley Muntari with his unprovoked physical attack on an Executive Committee member of the team’s football association and a management member of the Black Stars.

Besides that, the team threatened not honour their last group match against Portugal, until and when they’re paid their allowances; in full and in cash!

Given the unending squabbles, there was no way the Black Stars were going into advance to the last 16. They were their own enemies as they caused their own wretchedness.

Requiring a convincing win against the Cristiano Ronaldo-led Portugal side, we all woke up to familiar news that their top two stars, Muntari and Boateng, were suspended from the team.

And as if that wasn’t enough torment to us fans, the players threatened to boycott the game, forcing their president to send a plane with three million dollars (Sh261million) in order to stave off a player insurgency!

These African football players ought to know that the secret to getting maximum points in any match is to gang up on the problem, rather than each other.

And just to borrow a leaf from American civil rights activist and Baptist minister Jesse Jackson’s words of wisdom, “It's time for us to turn to each other, not on each other…”

Talking of turning to each other, Germany (leading with four points) needed to defeat USA in the other group G match for either Ghana or Portugal to make it to the pre-quarterfinal as the second team.

But there was no way German’s coach; Joachim Loew was going to dump his good friend and compatriot, Jurgen Klinsmann (USA’s coach) for any other team (read Ghana and Portugal) to advance.

Klinsmann was Loew's predecessor at Germany and made him his assistant, until Klinsmann quit following the team’s third-place finish at the 2006 World Cup at home.

For sure, mla nawe hafi nawe, ila mzaliwa nawe (He who eats with you will only die for you if he was born with you)

By handing Uruguay’s Luis Suarez a four-month ban from all of football, and a nine-match international ban, Fifa just confirmed my fears; the governing body always plays to the whims of its sponsors and suffers from selective amnesia.