[ 2015-02-01 ]

Ghana-Guinea-Mali: How the three might have fielded one national team at Afcon 2015
Goal reflects on the historical perspective
between the three nations, narrowing it down to
the two who would contest in on February 1

Football - specifically the ongoing Africa Cup of
Nations in Equatorial Guinea - threw three of West
Africa's states into a rather uneasy mix this
week, with Ghana, Mali and Guinea making the
headlines.

Ghana had qualified as winners of Afcon 2015 Group
C to the tournament's knockout rounds, while
neighbours Mali and Guinea were evenly matched in
every meaningful sense as runners-up in Group D,
ensuring the duo could only be separated after
lots had been drawn by the tournament's organizing
committee yesterday. Ultimately Guinea won, thus
booking a quarter-final date with the Black Stars
scheduled for next Sunday.

While we await that game, there's a piece of
history that once bound Ghana, Guinea and Mali
which we'd do well to acquaint ourselves with, for
what it's worth.

What that trio of countries share is much more
than just the colours red, gold, and green which
decorate their respective flags. Theirs is a
relationship that goes way back, stretching beyond
the spheres of football and modernity.

Ghana, Guinea, and Mali comprised one of Africa's
earliest and strongest triumvirates of independent
nations.

Together, they formed the Union of African States,
a short-lived and loose regional organization
established in 1958 which, in a sense, was a
precursor to the Organization of African
Unity/African Union (it certainly was what devoted
Pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah had in mind when he
declared that the union would be 'a nucleus of a
United States of Africa').

The union was the first organization in Africa to
bring together former colonies of the British and
the French.

Ghana and Guinea were initially the only
bedfellows in the body's first two years of
existence, with Mali only joining in 1960.

However, barriers - linguistic, geographic,
political et al - prevented the organization from
having an impact as great as it could.

The organization, eventually shunned by all other
newly independent African states to whom it was
open, could have seen its only three countries
essentially become one people, with a shared
currency and a unified foreign policy. There was
even talk of the establishment of a common
parliament (between Ghana and Mali specifically),
a single flag and a common constitution for all
the member countries.
The charter of the union provided for collective
security (the agreement that an attack on any of
the three countries would be an attack on all) and
shared diplomatic, economic, educational, and
cultural activities.

None of those plans ever materialized, of course,
but the organization did set some firm roots while
it lasted. Roots that have permeated the
timelines' of all three countries' existence
subliminally even till now. Particularly for Ghana
and Guinea, it goes even deeper.

Down to two

Ghana and Guinea, for a fact, have always been the
stronger among the trio. Their alliance had been
quite close-knit before Mali came to the party and
remained fairly so even after the organization
itself suffered its premature collapse in 1963.

Their respective first post-independence leaders,
Nkrumah (Ghana) and Ahmed Sekou Toure (Guinea)
weren't just comrades in African socialism or
merely political allies. The powerful pair were
buddies, so intimate that the former named one of
his sons after the latter.

Ghana, under Nkrumah, gave Guinea a loan of £10m
(a charitable deed some Ghanaians regard with
regret on hindsight), presumably to help the
Guineans wean themselves off French dependence and
influence.

When Nkrumah was ousted by a military coup from
Ghana's highest political office in 1966, Guinea
offered him, not only a home, but also the unusual
title of 'co-president'. Exactly what that meant
remains largely ambiguous, but Nkrumah certainly
held on to the role till his death in 1972.
Incidentally, both heads-of-state were huge
football fanatics. Or so it seemed.

The first trophy awarded to the winners of the
African Champions Cup (as the Caf Champions League
was originally known), for instance, was donated
by Nkrumah, while the next came from Toure.

As the countries the two men 'founded' take to the
pitch in Malabo on February 1 to do battle, the
players would quite possibly be oblivious of the
historical background that might have ensured that
Ghana and Guinea, perhaps along with Mali, might
have fielded one national team someday.
Be sure of one thing, though: any friendly
sentiments which might linger between the two
nations would definitely be put on ice for 90
minutes or more, with, among other things, a
semi-final berth on offer.

Source - Goal.com

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