“So sad to see a sunrise die”

It was pretty hot in the studio that morning in June 2006. But you made it warm. When lawyers from Eurofood appeared bent on denying some findings in my story, your incisive questions silenced them. Such was your approach as host of the Super Morning Show. You were fair, asking the hard questions and leaving your listeners to make up their minds. You were the boss player.

From your days as a traffic reporter, running the Super Morning Show, bagging that GJA top prize and moving on to make history with the BBC, you showed us that fortune favors the bold. Your life defined luck more as a result of hardwork; rather than a fluke. You were consistent in excellence.

As a friend, you never relented in our shared aim of keeping the flag of Ghana aloft in our engagement with international networks. You were always there to share ideas and compare notes as we engaged the world with our talents, to keep pushing the envelope and shaping our craft.

That day when you called me ahead of time to tell me Barack Obama was about to mention my name in his speech, you were filled with pure joy. “My brother, the world is really watching what we do. Let’s keep going,” you said. Thanks for sharing this journey from our early days with the coffee shop mafia.

I know the rainbow comes and goes. I also know our life’s Star settles elsewhere. But when I called Akwasi to confirm the news yesterday, my thoughts couldn’t square with the feeling. My thoughts immediately went to your face that day in Lawyer Zwennes’s office when we were strategizing about your SSNIT case. Komla, how can you be no more?

You should have waited for me to finish that investigation which you said was dear to your heart! What’s going to happen to your dream institute for churning out a new age of African journalists and communicators? I know you lived. For every broken bone in your forty-one year journey, you had miles of achievement to show. You made history.

Your dad, Kweku Baako, Tommy Annan Forson, Akwasi Sarpong, Samuel Atta Mensah, Carl Tuffour, Kwasi Twum, Vera Kwakofi, Francis Doku, Robert Clegg, Kwasi Pratt, Ben Dotse Malor, Ben Ephson, Ace Annan Ankomah, Kwaku Aggrey Orleans, Patrick Hayford, Sony Decker, Francis Ankrah, Leslie Amissah, Alhaji Abubakar Sadiq, Randy Abbey, Ransford Tetteh, Kabral Blay Amihere, Kwaku Sakyi Addo and the rest of us will remember you for the sunrise that you were. As the boss player, you played the best but for death, you would have played longer.

We salute you Komla Afeke Dumor!