Collin Essamuah: In memory of Prof. Atta Mills: “one of the very best from our continent” — Dr Kayode Fayemi

My faithful readers would remember the very first Abura Epistle column was written under a similar title, to mark the first anniversary of the unexpected and tragic passing away of the third President of this country under the Fourth Republic, John Evans Atta Mills.

On the third anniversary of the death of this past President ,therefore, I have decided to write again on him, taking my cue from the lecture delivered at this year’s Atta Mills Memorial Lecture delivered at GIMPA by a Nigerian politician with firm roots in Ghana, as was evident from the lecture he delivered last Tuesday.

It is the topic Dr John Kayode Fayemi chose to speak on which piqued my interest today; ‘’Intellectuals in Politics and Governance: Lessons and Legacy of Professor John Evans Atta Mills’’.

This is because the title is similar to what I wrote for my Bachelor of Arts Long Essay for Legon in 1982; ‘’The Intellectual as Politician: The Impact of Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia in Ghanaian Politics’’. Very eerie but true.

So I was very interested in this particular lecture, but as fate would have it, other business took me outside Accra last Tuesday, and I could not be present. However, I have the advantage of reading his lecture and digesting the contents thereof.

Interest in lectures

But before I delve into the lecture proper, I would urge Ghanaians in general to be interested in lectures and inhale the excellent knowledge they propagate. As a young man, I really loved to read the lecture by Arthur Lewis, who was Economic Advisor to President Nkrumah, on perspectives of economic development in developing countries under the auspices of the Aggrey-Fraser-Guggisberg Memorial Lectures organised by the University of Ghana in 1968 or so.

This West Indian internationally-recognised economist is generally regarded as the brain behind the Seven Years Development Plan in the First Republic. He later became President of the Princeton University, an Ivy League university in America, and a Nobel Laureate. A person worth reading, if only for his association with our country and its development efforts, and also for his easy writing style.

As a student in secondary school, I was present at the inaugural Kwame Nkrumah Lectures by the Nigerian politician, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo at the University of Cape Coast in 1976. The lecture itself caused a stir in Ghana at the time, but I still cannot get over the powerful evocative speech that Admiral CK Dzang delivered in place of General Acheampong, to open the series.

Of course since then, we have had many lectures of moment in this polity, all a reminder that we appreciate and respect real learning, and not empty, pretentious, bombastic posturing.

Dr Kayode Fayemi began with an arresting anecdote about President Mills which I will quote in full, to capture the flavour of the entire lecture, and its relevance to us as Africans first and as Ghanaians. Before then, bear in mind that Dr Fayemi was the former Governor of Ekiti State in Nigeria on the ticket of the current ruling party, APC, who lost the last elections. He had also been an academic all his professional life, and thus uniquely suited to talk about Professor Mills who also engaged in politics from the academia.

He was a good man

‘’When I informed President Muhammadu Buhari of this speaking engagement last week in the middle of a conversation about his ongoing trip to the United States of America, I was curious when he became very quiet. A man of not too many words, when he eventually spoke, he said: ‘’Governor, President Atta Mills was a good man; a very good man; one of the very best from our continent.

‘’Not aware that he had had any close interaction with the late President, I concurred that yes indeed, President Mills was a good man but went on to ask, ‘’’Were you close to him, sir?’’ He replied warmly: ‘’Not really, but I met him in 2011 when I came to rest in Ghana after the 2011 general election debacle in Nigeria, and he was gracious enough to allow me to stay at the Peduase Lodge, the Presidential retreat at Aburi in the Eastern Region.

‘’We spoke extensively during my stay in Ghana but two things he said to me during those conversations stuck in my memory. He was among the few, probably even the first to predict at a time that I had given up on contesting for the presidency that I will win the next election in Nigeria if I persevered. He admonished me to take a cue from his example and remain calm and resolute.

Second, he said to me at one point, ’’I came into this world with nothing. I shall leave it with nothing.’’ A statement that certainly reflected his humility and simplicity but was perhaps also an indication that he had a premonition he wasn’t going to live much longer. The following year, we lost President Mills.

As you all know, Nigeria subsequently witnessed a wind of change, bringing to office President Muhammadu Buhari in a keenly-contested election, and achieving the very first alternation of power between political parties in our Fourth Republic – peacefully.

We borrowed from the light Ghanaians must be very proud to bear as one of the beacons of peaceful transitions and relative maturity of conduct by your political elite across partisan divides, in Africa, in ensuring electioneering and transitions don’t have to be a signpost for wanton bloodshed and destruction of property. You can also add to that Ghanaian gift to post-Cold War democratisation in Africa, the esteemed clairvoyance of President Mills in predicting this was going to happen to us in Nigeria too.’’

In these prefatory remarks, Dr Kayode Fayemi captured the essence of President Mills in office, a paragon of peace, a public intellectual who did not disdain the rough and tumble of politics, and a man of immeasurable hope and confidence in the essential nature of man. It is not a mystery to me that the NDC of President Rawlings chose and accepted him into our rough politics in 1996.

This is because in our history since 1951, being too experienced has always had its pitfalls and been a bar to successful and practical politics. Some parties even practice the fine art of choosing running-mates they subsequently reject for the top prize, but not the NDC.

I remember President Mills assuring me in one of our conversations, that never in his wildest dreams, did he imagine himself holding the highest office in Ghana. But he did, eventually, holding and doing his part for us with dignity and pride. To quote Dr Fayemi: ‘’Remembering John Atta Mills is not an exercise in nostalgia, it is an opportunity to bear witness to decency and decorum.’’ May he rest in perfect peace.

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