Nana Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng joins the Ancestors!
The last week of May 2025 was not kind!
When my phone rang in the early hours of Tuesday May 27th, 2025, I asked with trepidation, “why do you make my heart miss a beat with this dawn call?” The grim answer through wailing was, “exactly so! Nana is gone!”
Deaths
This is how the news of the death in the UK on Monday, May 26th, 2025, of distinguished veteran journalist, former Chairman of the National Media Commission and current Board Chair of the Ghana News Agency, Nana Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng aged 74, was broken to me!
On May 28th, the death also in the UK was reported of 94-year-old Ghanaian medical doctor and international Sickle Cell consultant/icon Professor Felix Konotey-Ahulu.
On the same day, East Africa’s greatest novelist Ngugi Wa Thiongo died at 87!
These deaths took me back to my first article published in the Daily Graphic on January 1st 2015 titled “Kofi Chokosi Speaks - Life is short!”, after my retirement from the Ghana Armed Forces in 2014. It read:
QUOTE
Names like Sir Gary Sobers (West Indies), Sachin Tendulkar (India), Sir Ian Botham (England), Imran Khan (Pakistan) and Brian Lara (West Indies) are not known by most Ghanaians. This is because cricket is not a very popular sport in Ghana. Indeed, even at its peak in the 1960s and 1970s, it was played in only a few secondary schools.
Rightly or wrongly it is considered an elitist game. In Accra, only Achimota School played cricket. In Kumasi, Prempeh College and Opoku Ware were the two schools which played cricket. Cape Coast had Mfantsipim and Adisadel playing while in the Western Region, only the Ghana Secondary Technical School (GSTS) played cricket.
In effect, all Ghana’s cricketers came from the half a dozen schools mentioned. Incidentally, cricket was a legacy bequeathed by Britain to its former colonies of Ghana, The Gambia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. For my classmates and I who entered secondary school in the mid-1960s, cricket was the first sporting activity we were introduced to in the first term. Naturally, it made a great impact on all of us with cricket becoming a passion.
Ghanaians and cricket
Not surprisingly, on account of cricket’s unpopularity in this country, the sudden death of the 25-year-old Australian international cricketer Phillip Hughes did not make headline news in Ghana. In the cricket-playing world however, Thursday, November 27th 2014 will forever remain a dark day in cricket history, a day of tragedy for the game.
Two days earlier on Tuesday, November 25th 2014, while playing in a match in Sydney in his native Australia, the 25-year-old rising star in international cricket was struck by a ball on his neck. He fell immediately and lost consciousness. In spite of being promptly lifted by helicopter for surgery, he did not come out of unconsciousness. He died on Thursday, November 27th 2014. The effect of the impact of the ball on his neck has been likened to that sustained by a car racing driver on his head in a high-speed crash.
Bernice Offei’s song
Somehow, in recent times, I have developed an extra liking for the gospel musician Bernice Offei’s song “Life is Short”. Apart from the impact of the melody on me, I find the words so apt. In a very simple way, she reminds us and emphasises the shortness/transience of life – from birth, through adolescence to adulthood, old age and inevitably death. Probably that accounts for my recent near addiction to the song on YouTube.
Philip Bliss/Spafford’s song
The tragic death of the 25-year-old Australian cricketer Hughes, also reminded me of a regular song often sung during funeral church services, “It is well with my soul”. The song, which was composed by Philip Bliss, was based on a tragedy that befell an American family in the early 1870s. Horatio Spafford was a very well-known and wealthy lawyer in Chicago, Illinois, USA. In 1870, he lost his only son, aged four, to scarlet fever.
Soon after that in 1871, a fire incident which became known as the Great Fire of Chicago completely burnt out his real estate property. All his investments got wiped out. To take a break from these misfortunes, Spafford decided going on a holiday in England with his family in 1873. At the appointed time for departure, he got delayed by business. He, therefore, sent his wife Anna and their four daughters ahead.
On November 22nd 1873, while crossing the Atlantic in their ship Ville de Havre, they were struck by another ship, the Loc Ean. Two hundred and twenty-six people lost their lives, including all the four daughters of Mr and Mrs Spafford. Anna Spafford miraculously survived. On arrival in England, she sent her husband a telegram beginning with the words, “Saved Alone…..”
Spafford then set sail for England himself. It is said that, it was when their ship got to the point of the accident and subsequent drowning of his daughters that Spafford wrote the words of the popular hymn, “It is well with my soul”. The first verse and the refrain are as follows.
“When peace like a river attended my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say
It is well with my soul.”
REFRAIN: It is well (It is well,)
With my soul (With my soul,)
It is well, it is well with my soul”.
Year 2014
The year 2014 has not been a kind year. Too many times, I have heard Bernice Offei’s “Life is short” as well as Horatio Spafford/Philip Bliss’ “It is well with my soul” at funeral services. Among the many who left us in 2014, my good friend and mate, Brig Gen Richard Debrah was called to eternity at the age of 65. Another mate, Maj George Sarpong, lost his elder brother, Maj Charles Sarpong. He managed the biblical three score and ten! Perhaps, more painful on account of their relative youth were the deaths of two 35-year-old youngsters. ‘Chief’, the son of my mate, Brig Gen Emmanuel Okyere was called to eternity. In September 2014, my wife and I had to travel to Warri, Delta State of Nigeria for the funeral of the 35-year-old daughter of our family friends, Brig Gen and Mrs Dominic Oneya. She was cold-bloodedly murdered by armed robbers! This was only two weeks after she had visited us here in Accra.
The deaths of the two 35-year-olds, ‘Chief’ in Ghana and Frances in Nigeria, as well as that of the 25-year-old Australian international cricketer Phillip Hughes, in a routine cricket match, brought back memories of our son Nana Osei (Apoot), who was called to eternity in 2008 at age 27. It also reminded me of the words of Bernice Offei’s song, “Life is Short,” which says;
“Life is so short…… It passes so quickly and soon is gone……
Life is like a little flower. Today it’s here, tomorrow it’s gone…….
So don’t chase after riches and power…. Because they will fail you…….
So remember your Creator while you have breath…. “
Greed
The question that has constantly baffled me is what Bernice Offei alludes to in her song………..Greed! Why has greed taken over our lives with the endless chase after riches and power? Why do people steal and accumulate wealth as if they would permanently remain on this earth, and never die? Why do the arrogant show power and total disrespect for fellow human beings? Well, as Bernice says, “Life is short…….so remember your Creator while you have breath.”
As 2014 has passed and we have entered 2015, may the souls of all who departed for higher glory during 2014 rest in peace. Richy, Charles, ‘Chief’, Frances and Phillip Hughes in faraway Australia, as well as the many who are not mentioned here, Rest-in-Perfect-Peace!! And do not forget to send our greetings to our dear son, Nana Osei (Apoot/Boloo)! Like Horatio Spafford, we will be consoled by the hymn:
“When peace like a river attendeth my way……..
When sorrows like sea billows roll…………
Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say………
It is well with my soul.”
UNQUOTE
Discussion
The deaths of Nana Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng at 74, Professor Konotey-Ahulu at 94 and Ngugi Wa Thiongo at 87, at relatively mature ages, above the Biblical three-score-and-ten, with their integrity intact feed into earlier narratives that, “a good name is better than riches.” Indeed, even though Methuselah died at a record 969 years, some newspaper headlines in his time in Genesis would have read “gone too soon!”.
So, why the greed on the part of politicians grabbing everything in sight like they will live forever? Then, lip-service will be paid to fighting “galamsey” while it is left alone to kill Ghanaians slowly poisoning water bodies and the food-chain as greedy pockets are lined! The question the Chinese ambassador once asked was, how come South Africans (and Nigerians) do not allow galamsey by foreigners in their countries like Ghanaians do? Where is the patriotism Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah taught us as proud Ghanaians? As often asked on radio, what kind of people are we who will remove bolts and nuts on Tema-Mpakadan rail-tracks, and iron rods from concrete-structures/bridges at Achimota?
May the souls of Ghanaians Nana Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng and Prof Konotey-Ahulu, and Kenya’s Ngugi Wa Thiongo rest-in-peace!
Leadership, lead by Example! Fellow Ghanaians, WAKE UP!
The writer is a former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association, Nairobi, Kenya and Council Chairman, Family Health University, Accra
Writer's email:
