Professor Opoku-Agyemang has stated that emotional intelligence springs from an awareness that many people have come before the current generations, and that many more will come after them.

“The past generations left great footprints despite their own challenges and the current ones have the privilege of history, to ensure that future generations are empowered to leave even better legacies. There is nothing wrong with learning about and from other cultures after careful consideration but, there is everything wrong with copying and acceptance of unexamined practices”.

Professor Opoku-Agyemang was addressing the Emotional Intelligence Africa Summit 2023 at the Centre for National Culture, Cape Coast on the theme: “Rediscovering the Ghanaian in our current Dispensation”.

She said the culture that defined everyone as African or Ghanaian for that matter, was expected to be based on a communal form of being, of putting the interest of the group above that of the individual.

“In such a culture, being sensitive and respectful of others emanates from managing one’s emotions, preferences and choices on the one hand and, on the other, those of others. In any position of leadership, this becomes an imperative”.

She said with this shared understanding or ideology, there was a need to build cathedrals in the hearts of the people to be caring, sharing, God-fearing, and honest. They eschew greed, bullying, insensitivity, selfishness, arrogance, unfairness and plain hollowness.

“The cathedral we need in this country is a huge, deep one built on hope, honesty, trust, and regard for the vulnerable. Such a cathedral should and cannot have any space for dishonesty, hypocrisy or pose as a veil for taking the name of God in vain”.

She said that ‘no one would be thankful for inheriting a botched education system, contaminated rivers, poisoned soils, a health system hanging in the balance, spillages, not by force Majeure, resulting in water once used for many daily chores, seeping from cemeteries, garbage dumps, public toilets, drains, going to waste in tragic, destructive conditions, exterminating aquaculture, flora and fauna, while water was urgently needed for irrigation and other purposes.

“It is a complete emotional disengagement bordering on abuse when those in the positions to empathize rather blame the victims, rubbing salt in their injuries.

She told the youth that giving up was never an option. “The true Ghanaians are not perfect human beings, but we can tell from their records and examples that their policies spring from a well of emotional intelligence.

“Our forebears have been through unspeakable difficulties which they confronted to survive and arm themselves to pave a future we have every duty to protect. One of the many ways is to know our true history, tell our own stories, and interrogate who we are, what we are becoming and the nature of the endgame.

“We must have both faith and trust in our abilities to solve our problems. We raise our levels of confidence when we make the effort when we do not leave our fate in the hands of others”.

She urged the audience to learn about their true history which was much alive in their names, those of their ethnic groups and the towns and villages from which they come, from their traditional festivals and even the meaning of the staffs of linguists.

“A study of this nature will break down the meaning of Emotional Intelligence to practical outcomes”.