I am thoroughly ashamed of you! — Prof. SK Odamtten (1965)

As soon as he joined me at the Air Force Officers Mess where we had agreed to rendezvous after church at the Garrison-Methodist-Presbyterian-Church, Burma Camp, on Sunday April 6, 2025, my colleague said, “Dan, when I did not see you at Dr David Pessey’s funeral on Thursday, March 27, 2025, I knew something serious must have prevented you from coming. 

David was my classmate in primary school, and your classmates from MOBA 1970 were visibly present! I was told you were chairing the official launch of the Family Health University College into a full-fledged institution, Family Health University, at which the President was expected as the Guest of Honour.”

These were the words of Air/Cdre Kwame Mamphey (Rtd), Ghana’s former representative at the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in Montreal, Canada, and a former DG, Ghana Civil Aviation Authority.

As we talked about Dr Pessey, my mind raced back to my January 2022 article, which stated: 

Events in December 2021 took me down memory lane to our first year in secondary school in 1965.

The 105 of us were put in A, B and C classes of thirty-five boys each. 

Interestingly, even though we were greenhorns in our first year, we were addressed as Form Two boys.

The explanation was that the regular five-year “O-Level” was being reduced by a year to four years.

However, on February 24, 1966, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown in a Military/Police coup, leading to a reversal to the five-year “O-Level.”

So, in our second year, we were again addressed as Form Two boys.

As little boys, mischief appeared part of our DNA, varying on a scale of 1-10.

Without doubt, my class, 2A, where David Pessey was, notoriously topped our form with a “well-above-average” grade for mischief, despite having some fine gentlemen among us like Henry Baddoo, Emmanuel Lartey and Fred Odoi, later all professors!

Teachers responded differently to our mischief.

While those who believed in moral suasion appealed to our conscience, others asked God to give them patience (pronounced “paai..tience”). 

In a reaction one day, an angry teacher yelled at us saying, “there are some sheeps among you” to which we responded with giggles and “sheeeeps! Sheeeeeps!”. So, for Methodist-Hymn-Book 318 which reads, “Souls of men, why do ye scatter like a pack of frightened sheep”, we sang it as, “why do ye scatter like a pack of frightened sheeeeeps!”

Our History teacher/master, on the other hand, responded calmly to our mischief.

Mr SK Odamtten, later Professor Odamtten, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of Cape Coast, aka “Kusum”, taught us History. He responded to such mischief by simply saying, “I am thoroughly ashamed of you!”

Doubtlessly, that would have been his statement to our MPs in January and December 2021, and more recently on January 30, 2025, as they vandalised furniture/microphones during vetting of ministers!

January 7, 2021

My article, “Pandemonium in Democracy’s citadels”, in January 2021 stated as follows:

“Early January 7, 2021, in Accra, Ghanaians watched with total disbelief and shock our Parliament’s Chamber converted into a blend of a rugby stadium and a boxing/wrestling ring, where MPs violently displayed their snatching, sprinting, slapping, stampeding and sitting-on-lap skills.

In the confusion, armed soldiers and police also entered the chamber.

On the first sitting of the 8th Parliament on January 15, 2021, the Speaker strongly reprimanded the MPs for their “unruly behaviour” and “despicable conduct.”

After his strong words to the MPs, the Speaker apologised to Ghanaians and promised that such disgraceful conduct would not occur again. Little did Ghanaians know that a worse scenario awaited us in December 2021.

20 December 2021

The issue of a 1.75 per cent e-Levy tax in the 2022 Budget proposal sparked off controversy soon after it was presented in November 2021.

On December 20, 2021, Ghana’s Parliamentary Chamber was once again converted into a boxing/wrestling-ring/arena, where MPs displayed skills Spanish matadors would have envied.

MPs boxed, punched, kicked, fought and tore clothes, as attempts were made to snatch the Speaker’s chair like an MP snatching a ballot-box on January 7, 2021.

Was it a case of the quote “As it was in the beginning, so it is now, and so shall it ever be?” for the Eighth Parliament?

The Minister for Parliamentary Affairs agreed with a radio caller’s description of the conduct of the MPs as “shameful, embarrassing and shocking!”

Indeed, he added, “I am scandalised and ashamed to be called Leader of Parliament!”

Having descended so deeply into the gutter, can our MPs have the moral courage/conscience to invite any Ghanaian before the Privileges Committee for a non-violent verbal comment?

Privileges and responsibility are two sides of the same coin.

They, therefore, cannot claim privileges while reneging on their promises/responsibilities.

Sadly, interviewed teenagers opined that some MPs have reduced themselves, by their misconduct in the glare of the whole world, to the level of rampaging primary school kids. 

Amends

An Akan proverb states, de3 mmoa adi no, wondi nk).

De3 aka no, y3 b3 bo ho ban! Using a farming analogy, it roughly translates as, “what has been eaten by animals is lost.

What is left must be protected!”

Doubtlessly, most MPs are decent Ghanaians who were voted for as our representatives in Parliament.

The decent MPs, therefore, owe themselves and Ghanaians a responsibility of ridding Parliament of the few unrepentant kick-boxers, wrestlers and matadors whose actions constantly bring Parliament into disrepute.

As the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs said on radio on January 3, 2022, “If only we allow the Law to work, things will work!” Charity begins at home!

At my “Manager’s” graduation in 1979 at the University of Cape Coast, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor SK Odamtten ended his address with a quote from Philippians 4:8-9.

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any praise, think on these things.

Those things you have learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.”

I commend this to our MPs.

That way, Prof. Odamtten’s ghost will not tell them, “I am thoroughly ashamed of you!” 

In my 2A class of first-year boys in 1965, every one of us had mischief in us.

David was a gifted artist/cartoonist. 

When our History teacher told us that the King of the Songhai Empire, Askia Mohammed the Great, “died of a mosquito bite,” immediately after the lesson, David drew Askia Mohammed on the blackboard with a mosquito perched on his nose, biting him to death!

Sixty years later, if Professor Odamtten (Kusum) were alive to see how his troublesome first-year little boys of 1965, later MOBA 1970, saw off our classmate Dr David Pessey, he would have smiled and said, “I am thoroughly ashamed of you no more!

Well done, boys!” Similarly, good behaviour by our MPs will elicit the same words from “Kusum.”

Our dear brother, Dr David Eccles Nii Laate Pessey, rest in peace!

Leadership, lead by example! Fellow Ghanaians, wake up! 

Former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association,
Nairobi, Kenya/Council Chairman, Family Health University,
Accra.                        
E-mail: dkfrimpong@yahoo.com