Visible men, women of the frontier versus quiet men, women of stability - Reflections on Achimota

They used to look up to us but they don’t do so anymore.

Much thought gave birth to this sentence though it sits easily and truthfully as the opening theme of this short reflection.

Our task? To help better understand the leadership that Achimota has offered to Ghana.

This reflection comes to the reader as part of the 97th Achimota School Founders Day Celebration currently being organised by the 1974- and 1984-Year groups of the school.  

Yes, Achimota is 97 years old! Three years shy of the upcoming centenary celebration.

 As Achimota has found out, it is not easy to be almost 100 years old. 

This is the sad part of the reflection.

Let’s get it over with so I can get to the celebration and the nostalgia (and hopefully also, a little enlightenment).    

It is a sad truth that over the last 20 years at least, alumni of the Achimota School (formerly Prince of Wales College) have been stuck in a morass of lament about the state of their once jauntily proud school.

Many accept that Achimota appears to have faded quietly into near obscurity. It was not sudden, just a long, slow, painful slide ride into the sunset, brightened only by the renewed efforts at the year group level to renovate the school.

Resurrection is not easy as the school now houses over 4000 students, who board in houses that will soon be 100 years old.

All sorts of other forces also buffet the school.  

Some often wish or dream that the very rich would lead the school to at least fix the roofs of all the houses (Livingstone, Lugard, Cadbury, Slessor, Guggisberg, Stopford, Aggrey, Fraser, the Ad Block).  

Achimota is known now for making it almost impossible for brilliant young people with Rastafarian hairstyles to attend Achimota.

A quick social media scan shows that we went to the High Court to prevent a Rasta guy from enrolling at Motown. 

Sad, but this is where we currently are.

There are no stories about performances of stunning academic brilliance by Achimotan students and indeed no recent stories about the leadership of Ghana, indeed of the continent, in ways that make millions across the world marvel and ask:  where did these folks go to school?

And yet, the visible sadness about lost and vanished glory does not, of course (and should not) obscure the palpable reality that across the world, in hundreds of thousands of corners and places, Achimota still leads.

We do so with distinction, flair, purpose, dedication, focus, passion, hope and hype; we naturally lead.

 In that sense, we are not at all dead.

But we have faded.

That may be what happens when you are almost 100 years old.

This also gives you a right to do a bit of nostalgia before the short reflection about leadership.  
 

Frontier leaders vs quiet men, women 

The meaty part of this reflection essentially asks, are/were the Akora great men and women to be found listed in Wikipedia and other places all the same?

Or there are some categories to help us organise their greatness. 

Do people cross categories? 

In what leadership category would you place Akora Kwame Nkrumah, founding father of modern Ghana? 

Does Jerry Rawlings fit into the same category as (1) E. M. Debrah, seasoned civil servant and international diplomat extraordinaire or Judge Thomas Mensah, globally recognised jurist of international law and the Law of the Sea, trundling along the streets of Hamburg or London and not looking like he is carrying the whole world in his hands?

And how do we categorise S.B. Mfodwo, Deputy Registrar of the University of Ghana, who has gone down in fame for keeping the examination system honest at a time when ruin and rot were starting to prevail elsewhere?  

Where do we place all the quiet, unassuming, but scarily efficient and honest bureaucrats who passed the time with us in the school and on the Legon campus during the 70’s?

The people who never made the news but ensured that the system worked within limits or at least where their power reached.

And who are the Akoras who sit in both these categories?

For example, Kofi Charley or Alexander Alastair Ampofo. Today, not many have heard of him.

Where do we place him? After all, he was at the frontier of helping us feed ourselves in the 70’s as he single-handedly organised the rice industry in the Upper Region of Ghana as the leading civil servant of those parts during the Acheampong era in the 70’s.

A frontier man, for sure. 

But scary in his insistence on following the proper procedures.

And of those living today, where do we place Kwame Pianim, patriot extraordinaire?  

We briefly explore two categories: Leaders operating at the frontier and shaking the system are accessible:  Kwame Nkrumah and Jerry Rawlings.

The second category is the hard one – the quiet people who held the country and its key institutions together and without whom Ghana would not be enjoying its current peace.

To be sure, personal knowledge is the criterion for the names appearing here.

So, leadership at the frontier.

 Indeed, this category conveys a sense of people who were way ahead and sought to bring others along.

Everywhere, there is a frontier, which means there has been an Achimotan of distinction in every field.

The roll call can be scary.

Hence, only a few examples.

Take music as a type of culture.

Kofi Ghanaba or Guy Warren for jazz. King Bruce for highlife as it emerged in the 60’s. Reggie Rockstone, William Chapman-Nyaho and Kofi Agawu for the theory of African music and Africans in global classical music.

Dr Amu, of course, sits up on high and nods wisely. Organising our music and providing a venue for people to play:  Nii Odoi Oddoye of Club 233 – sure and steady for over two decades.

Ensuring that those in the diaspora can eat our banku: Esther Ocloo of Nkulenu.

And there were those holding West Africa together when Sierra Leone threatened to send us all to hell and back.

These were times when rebels meeting you on the highway would ask:  long sleeve or short sleeve?

That would decide where they would slash off your hand or arm.

The role of Ambassador D.K. Osei is now well known, but as for Madam Adwoa Coleman, very few people know about her.

However, the relevant documents bear her signature as AU representative on every page.

Then, of course, Ambassador Kwesi Quartey, formerly Deputy Chair of the African Union.  

Even in the Middle East and Gaza, where death stalks every day, drinking up blood, Achimota School has quietly been there, working to relieve misery.

Micheal Kingsley-Nyinah is currently with the UN in New York, but until recently worked in Damascus as Director of Syria Operations with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), having previously served with UNRWA as Assistant Director of Operations and as Chief of Staff at its Headquarters in Gaza.

He knows hotspots such as Khan Younis and Rafah (currently of Israeli bombardment and UN Security Council fame) up very close.

Quiet men, women of national, international stability.

Several criteria define the authentic Akora men and women of stability the country has been blessed to have. Discipline — a fantastic work ethic — focus, personal honesty, modesty of life with no interest in flaunting wealth or affluence.

The backbone which bound them was a commitment to national service and to that of the organisation for which they worked.

What made life easier for these authentic Akoras was that they established reputations for honesty and discipline early in their career.

Therefore, other staff who needed to improve their qualities tried to avoid working for them.

Leaders above them who were dishonest probably also moderated their dishonesty to some degree.

Finally, there was an ability to adapt the often British rules of procedure guiding their organisations to Ghanaian circumstances.  

Three examples of this type of person come to mind: the AFRC Commissioners who held the country together during the grave and threatening three-month AFRC rule following a widespread mutiny within the armed forces in 1979.  

The situation was one of complete chaos until, gradually, order was restored. And yet this tiny team of technocrats,who schooled at Achimota, managed to run the country during this potentially devastasting crisis.  

The small group of Akoras who was the AFRC civilian cabinet included:  Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice: Austin Amissah; Commissioner for Foreign Affairs: Gloria Nikoi; Commissioner for Information:  Kwame Afreh; Commissioner for Lands and Natural Resources:  Professor George Benneh; Commissioner for Health, Education and Culture:  Dr Evans-Anform. In close support was the Electoral Commissioner, Justice Kingsley-Nyinah.

It helped immensely that this group all overlapped in various ways at Achimota.

This group must receive more recognition for its massive role in keeping the country going and persuading the armed forces to hand over to civilian rule.

The second group of stable men are the Akora vice-chancellors and professors of the University of Ghana who from 1966 to 2002 kept the university stable through periods of deep national turmoil and difficulty: Alex Kwapong (1966 to1975); Daniel Adzei-Bekoe (1976-1983); Akilakgpa Sawyerr (1985-1992); Georg Benneh (1992-1996; and Ivan Addae-Mensah (1996-2002).  

The third category is the international men and women of stability.

Some I have mentioned as having been at the Frontier.  But also, as internationals, they helped build stability.  

A few more to add but truth to tell, the list is so very long and it is impossible to do all the men and women of stability, justice.

Reflecting a degree of legal prejudice, let’s list: Akora S. K. B Asante, lawyer and first Director of the United Nations Centre for Transnational Corporations; Akora Justice Date-Bah, former Supreme Court Judge and previously of the Commonwealth Secretariat; and Akora Judge Akua Kuenyehia formerly of the International Criminal Court and Akora E.V.O. Dankwa previously Chairman of the African Human Rights Commission.  

Many will struggle to place Prof. Atta Mills of beloved memory, his hockey stick in the air, as he bears down to score a goal at the first hockey pitch on the Games Field.

He may prod us to think of new categories to embrace him.

And as for Achimota, fondly nicknamed Motown since the 70s, it will rise again in its own time and at its own pace as we nurture the present to restore the legacy. 

The writer is an international law consultant based in Accra and Nairobi.

He currently works for the African Union.