A former Slave, now hope to multitudes The proverbial saying that, success is not attained on a silver has once again have been proven right by Chief Godfred Medicine, the founder and leader of the united shepherd group of companies (U.S Group of Companies). Chief Medicine, is a Ghanaian by birth and hails from the Volta Region of Ghana. Like the biblical Joseph, he was sold into slavery, but this unfortunate situation in no way hampered his resolve to becoming the inspiration for the oppressed, food for the hungry, hope to the hopeless, and employment to the unemployed. The name medicine, which he said simply stood for the image of God, was given to him by one Dutch missionary who ferried across the Volta lake immunising the natives against various water borne diseases.

In taking me through the journey of how he has been able to make it to where he is so far, The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the fast emerging U.S group of Companies, a Ghanaian based amalgam of various subsidiary step-ups, who equally is an author, entrepreneur and a motivational speaker, took me through his childhood ordeal of being sold into slavery at a tender age of six by his biological mother, the reason(s), he described as purely monetary.

At age 16, he had the opportunity to escape from his slave masters and made it back home to enrol in basic school. He, out of determination and persistence honoured the various classes he had to go through as every student was required to, though he was fast advanced in age, he sat for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) came out with aggregate nine, a situation which obviously qualifies him for any Secondary school of his choice. But unfortunately for him, he couldn’t raise the needed money for admissions, so had to give up any dream of proceeding to Secondary that material moment.

With the zeal of hard work like blood running through his veins, though young, he resorted to farming and fishing with the aim of raising enough money to send him back to school, fortunately for him, he was on the river fishing one day, when he heard about one Secondary School which he mentioned as Tsiame Secondary School on the radio, inviting students to be admitted to pursue various course of interest. He made the attempt and was eventually admitted to continue with his secondary education. After admissions, he mentioned as a major struggle, the difficulty he had to go through as a student to raise money for his up-keep. For this particular reason, he skipped classes on Fridays, in addition to Saturdays and Sundays which he virtually devoted to fishing and farming in order to raise enough money for his up-keep throughout the week.

On the issue of what really motivated him to shoulder all these struggles, he opined “I was made a matured person before I begin thinking for myself…I think beyond my age…because I was brought up by an elderly woman(grandmother), such was the thinking pattern…I am to limited to one particular thing… Christ was my role model” With regards to what was the foundation that led to the beginning of his company, he started that after school he had the opportunity to work for a man who afterwards brought him to Accra for his sheer demonstration of “spirit of hard work. In Accra, has was taught how to bake bread, went a bit into bread baking. And for his peculiar attitude of doing a lot of things at a go, he revealed that in addition to his baking activities, he at a point played the role of a nanny for various nursing mothers, thereafter, he was identified by a lady who subsequently advised him to go into teaching, as a result, he took an appointment to work in a day care Centre for some time and, coupled with this, in the evenings he worked as a cleaner/ security personnel for Village Inn restaurant at Abelenkpe, a suburb of Accra. Prior to his venturing into the corporate world, he again revealed to at a point in time ventured into tilapia and chacoal trading business. By way of advice, the Self established entrepreneur, who attributes his success to no other individual than God, vehemently bemoaned what he described as the Ghanaian attitude of always believing to be shareholders one way or the other in the success stories of others’.

A situation he blamed persists due to bad leadership, but argued for the situation where the Ghanaian will begin to see themselves as master of their own destiny. He debunked the assertion that our educational system is not the best, but basically called for an individual assessment of ourselves as individuals to see whether all is right with us. He equally advised against the believe that life is rosy outside the shores of Africa, where individuals, “even masters holders” day without end queue for visas to fly-out of the nation.

AKAHO FELIX JUNIOR

GHANA INSTITUTE OF JOURNALISM felixscorner.blogspot.com