The Paramount Chief of the Effutu Traditional Area, Neenyi Ghartey VII, delivered his speech at the opening of the Aboakyer Invitational Tennis tournament in Winneba.
The Local Organising Committee for the 13th African Games – Accra 2023 – has partnered with the Ghana Tennis Federation to stage the tournament in Winneba.
Below is the speech delivered by the Paramount Chief.
I’m delighted to be here this afternoon. The Traditional Council has been friends with sports ever since I became the Paramount Chief.
So I take pride in welcoming the Executive Chairman of the LOC and his entourage, representative of the Ghana Tennis Federation, the Director and staff of this college, and members of the traditional council as well as tennis players and everybody who is here today, I wish you a healthy welcome.
Thinking through what has made this festival exciting we quickly contacted the LOC, because COVID-19 brought a halt to all activities for two years. And, true to our dreams, the LOC honoured their promise to be part of this event.
Aboakyer by its nature is a sporting event because the Asafo man is everywhere, hunting and making sure they find the deer. So it is not surprising that the people of Effutu are sportspeople.
Talking about tennis, the young ones have been coming here to play and we are happy that we are among the good ones when you are talking about tennis players in the country.
Our only prayer is that they should make use of the tennis court so that this town will continue to provide the Tennis Federation with tennis stars.
We will entreat the Tennis Federation to roll out activities for us to keep us busy so we can make positive use of the facility here. As a matter of fact, we are backing you with everything we have.
Next year, the big Games are coming, and partnering with the Effutu Traditional Council to celebrate Aboakyer is just the beginning. We are going to support you in every discipline Ghana will participate in.
We want to do that so that H.E. Nana Akufo-Addo, the President of the Republic, will feel proud about the LOC organising the Games for the African continent.
On this note, all I will say is that let’s celebrate and increase the fraternity between us while at the same time working hard to win a place.
So those of you here, despite the celebration focus on working hard in order to write your name in the books of Team Ghana.
I’m wishing everybody well. It is a friendly atmosphere.