By Justice Lee

Come Saturday, September 3, 2011, the mortal remains of the late Solomon Kwabena Atta Kumah, would be laid to rest after a burial service at the 37 Military hospital hockey pitch.

Chief mourner for the funeral would be no other person than former President Jerry John Rawlings, whom the late former mortuary attendant at the military hospital had described as his good friend in one of his rare interviews with the media.

Popularly known as Atta Mortuary man, the deceased became a household name in Ghana when during the 2010 National Delegates Congress of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), former president used an incident involving him (Atta Mortuary man) as an anecdote to describe the kind of relationship between him and President John Evans Atta Mills.

Many were those who thought that the former president had concocted the story, to denigrate the sitting president, but a quick interview by some radio stations and publications by local newspapers brought the man, then 82 into public limelight.

The late Mr. Atta Kumah who hailed from Kete Krachi in the Volta Region had worked as a mortuary attendant for the past 43 years at the military hospital before his home call.

Another high profile personality among the Chief Mourners is J.K Bebaako Mensah, secretary to President John Evans Atta Mills, who was also secretary to cabinet under former president Rawlings.

His mortal remains would be laid in state at the 37 hockey pitch between 6 am and 12 noon on September 3, and the funeral rites continue at the same venue after burial. The late mortuary man is survived by a wife, Mrs. Rebecca Atta Kumah and five children.

Atta had wanted to honour former president Rawlings in case the former president passed on before him,(Atta). However as fate would have it, Rawlings would rather “powder” Atta’s face (to honour him).

It was at the congress of the NDC held in Tamale last year that Mr. Rawlings told the original story. According to him, one night, Old Man Atta could not go home, so he decided to stay at the mortuary.

It got so cold that he pulled a white sheet off one of the corpses and wrapped himself in it. As someone who had got used to handling corpses, this was normal with him. When he stepped out to urinate, something happened. A soldier, who saw what to him was an apparition or a ghost, took to his heels. When Old Man Atta saw the soldier running away at top speed, he also ran after the soldier without finding out the cause of the soldier’s action.

As the soldier ran towards the safety and security of a guardroom at the hospital, Old Man Atta also ran in the same direction.

A happy ending to the story was that there was no apparition or ghost, and no one was hurt. Mr. Rawlings did not tell his listeners what happened afterwards, for example, the wonder, anger or merriment that must have greeted the story of “The Soldier and The Mortuary Assistant.”