Nana Obiri-Boahen, Mensah Otabil And The Moral Man

The week before I left Ghana, I visited the Abossey-Okai branch of the International Central Gospel Church to see the face of God for the last time. It was important I did, because I haven’t had the chance to see much of God in London, where the permissiveness of western life has almost rendered me a ‘redundant’ Christian. I was blessed to have sat under the ministration of Pastor Mensah Otabil, the General Overseer of that Christian body. In his usual didactic-laden analysis of scripture, he retold the biblical story of Jacob and Esau with so much scholarship that it would have appealed to Mephistopheles or the devil himself. At a point, he cautioned that because we have no idea what we will become tomorrow, it was important that we live a good life today. He opined that when tomorrow beckons, for it surely will, people would judge you by what you did today. What followed was an example from his life. He had prayed to God as a young man that the first woman he would ever propose love to must be his wife. So, the mother of his children, Joy, was the first woman the man of God ever fancied in his life. He disappointed nobody and nobody is likely to have a testimony to the contrary about his love life. He prepared for his tomorrow quite well; he never said boo to a goose.

The appointment of Nana Obiri-Boahen, the Brong Ahafo NPP Regional Chairman as a minister of state for the Ministry of the Interior, has sparked some controversy among some concerned Ghanaians. Albin Bagbin’s minority in Parliament had raised issues that were on the whole political. Others have questioned the moral side of the Sunyani based legal practitioner. President John Kufour must have seen his potential, for Obiri-Boahen had ever eyed the General Secretaryship of the New Patriotic Party, and he has held the fort quite well at the regional level. He doesn’t appear to be much of a political gamble; so why is his appointment becoming a canvass on which folks prefer to paint a picture of his gorgeous side and his not so beautiful angle.

I am Sunyani born and bred, and an alumnus of the same second cycle institution as Nana Obiri-Boahen. I didn’t see much of him at University of Ghana; he had left that great institution when I entered. But, I know a bit of his going ins and coming outs as a Sunyaninarian. If not his person, at least, I know his Odumase based family quite well. There is nothing of the night about his family, and indeed the man himself, but you wouldn’t say he has an angelic side to his very sociable nature. For, he has led his life like a normal man going through the vicissitudes of life: thinking when a thought will do; talking when a word will help; cursing when the witches win the day and sinking when the drowning water is all there is for the swimmer. Like a man, there may be times he must have talked too much or thought too much, but he has managed to sail afloat the drowning waters most of the time. If he ever sank, for that is not unexpected, it didn’t make news then, because nobody cared very much. Today, we care to know the kind of man President Kufour has nominated as a public officer.

The debate about whether a person’s public life must necessarily be assessed in the light of their private conduct, has dogged many a politician since participatory democracy gained prominence. The wisdom underlying the debate has always been that a filter would always leave an imprint on that which it filters: a man’s hidden nature will tell on even the most inconsequential thing he tries his hands on. If he is a wife beater, he wouldn’t mind slapping his colleague in parliament, because he doesn’t care very much about cheekbones. If he is an adulterer, he would not mind making the beast with two backs with his secretary, even if she doesn’t wear underpants. To such people, public office is understood in a pubic context only. A man who cannot hold his family together would usually not be a good team player when he assumes public office. Usually a person, who has stolen more than twice in his life, would not hesitate to steal the third time when he gets a good opportunity. So, the cliché about the leopard is incontrovertible everyday: the spots will show any day.

Well, human beings are not leopards: they change their spots when it becomes necessary. There are folks who never prepared for their tomorrow in any way, but they are doing fine today. When George Bush, Jr, assumed the US presidency some seven years ago, joke went on that his best friend at high school visited the White House, to see for himself whether the man elected president of the United States wasn’t a cloned version of another human being mistaken to be George Bush. He knew his IQ then, and had seen how he conducted himself in his private life. He also knew that the American presidency wasn’t for any living being at all, and in his thinking, not for good old George. He met him, felt his hands and would have found it easier convincing himself that Jesus Christ really had a daughter called Sarah, than believing that his then buffoon of a friend was now the president of the whole world, dictating for 6billion people, including subsidies for animals. When he came out of the White House, perplexed at the discovery, he sighed that there is hope for everybody on earth, including himself, needless to say.

Where does Nana Obiri-Boahen fit in this equation? If ability was all there is public office, then you could groom him for the presidency. Even if you never met him at Sunyani Secondary School where he was school prefect, you always saw his name boldly embossed on the board of successful student leaders of the school. It is strategically placed at the entrance to the administration. The day I met him with my mother, a worker at the school, he had become a successful lawyer and was driving a very good car. My mum remarked that he was a good lad at school, and she would be proud to see me grow to be somebody like that. Which part of him was my mum referring to: his success at the practice of law or his life as a private citizen? What interested me was the colour of car; not his profession or his private life. I never wanted to be a lawyer; I was studying English at university, and considered law a discipline for rigid minds that find the thees and thous of Shakespeare too archaic for comprehension.

So, who exactly is Nana Obiri-Boahen? Will he make a good minister at the Interior? My sources in Sunyani say he had been doing a very good job as the regional chairman of the NPP. He would spring to the defense of the party in a very measured tone, often relying on his knowledge of the law to advance his arguments. Party gurus had been observing his contribution and potential, and with the Senior Minister, J.H Mensah only next door as MP in the region, he needn’t look any further for a good reference. He is young and promising: he can be groomed for anything the heavens permit. He has some credentials to rely on; at least he is an eloquent lawyer and a liberal democrat. Apart from the need to ensure regional balance in his appointments, the president may have good reasons for inviting him into his government. That is the political side of Obiri-Boahen.

As a person, he would appeal to people differently. When Brong Ahafo cocoa farmers consider seeking redress at the courts, they have one name on their lips: the lawyer who waxes Bono like a true native of the Bono land. On radio stations in Sunyani, his Bono language easily identifies him, and his analyses are quite cogent. I had been reading his contributions in newspapers before he became the Brong Ahafo NPP Chairman. On the moral plane, I don’t think he would be that lucky to tell the Mensah Otabil story, and neither would I nor many a clergyman. But, he hasn’t led his life as if there was no tomorrow; he is a married man with children in a society that isn’t very cosmopolitan. He must have conducted himself well enough to have secured the party’s chairmanship, which he protected diligently until his nomination as minister. If there were skeletons in his cupboard, they would have popped up over time.

It is reasonable to argue that a position at the regional level would not require the same degree of scrutiny as a national appointment. Public office management at the ministerial level is a national affair; a minister of state is not just his party’s appointee, he is an ambassador of his country and a reflection of his people. His life must appeal to the people he represents. Usually, he must have satisfied the unseen code of conduct as a private citizen to merit a public office.

Yet, another twist to the private-public leadership debate is the all important issue of competence. If a bad person can deliver good results, should we cast him aside for a lamb that would flounder the next minute? In the advanced democracies, former wife beaters and adulterers are holding big portfolios, which they are managing quite well. Men who prefer to behold the bony nakedness of their fellow men, instead of the delicious curves of a voluptuous female, (I think they call them gays or something like that) are doing some pretty good work in national life. Public officers who disappoint are given a second chance to right their wrongs. Sometimes, they are given a third chance to sort out a private mess for the public good. If the lid were taken off the past of some of us, people would revolt against God for not releasing divine stones from the heavens to kill us anon.

Even so, public office holders are barometers by which people judge the importance of the office they occupy. Sometimes, they are role models for many of us. If it matters to create a good office, it should matter to find good people for the office. It doesn’t always happen that a community-spirited individual would be accepted by everybody, such that folks are comfortable to accord him the accolade of a people’s man. Nana Obiri-Boahen must have done a few good things to have earned the admiration of the good people of the Brong Ahafo region. He has served his region and his party quite well; he would do better as a minister of state. I think we have a fine prospect here. Well, President J.A Kufour also thinks so. Don’t you think so?