The West Africa Association of Ewes (WAAE), an umbrella body of Ewe speaking countries in West Africa, has launched its maiden football tournament to promote peace and unity in the sub-region through sports.
Mr. Foster Enam Dagadu, the President of the Association and Executive member of the Ghana Boxing Federation (GBF), said at the event held in Lome, Togo, that sports can unite Ewes across the four West Africa nations, where Ewe is widely spoken by the natives.
“I believe sports, especially football can be used to bring Ewes together and put priority on the dialect.
Many people in west Africa including Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria, do not know that Ewe is our common language.
We have over six million Ewes in Ghana, three million in Togo, about six hundred thousand in Benin and over five hundred thousand in Nigeria,” Mr Dagadu told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at the event.
He said the tournament would be an annual event to bring together Eweland and encourage the people to speak the language and give Ewe names to their children in a bid to identify with and market the language.
“If you know Ewe is spoken in all these countries, you will be proud to speak it and be identified with it,” he said.
The sports Journalist appealed to organisations and individuals to support the Association for a successful tournament.
The one-week tournament is scheduled to come off in Accra in December.
Torgbi Dikenu II, a Divisional Chief of Nogokpo and an Executive member of the Association, urged all Ewes in West Africa to embrace their culture and traditions and to continue to propagate it wherever they go.
“We must be proud of our culture and traditions and learn to speak the Ewe language which identifies us as a people, inculcating same in the younger generation,” Torgbi Dikenu said.
He appealed to all well-meaning individuals and institutions to support the Association to achieve its set objectives.