The Loss of a President

I wasn't going to blog till the weekend. I haven't felt the urge in over a week now.
Till I woke up this morning to Facebook posts, comments, pictures of President John Atta Mills I had been tagged in while I was in dreamland and tweets exchanged between concerned friends about how I would take the news. You see John Evans Atta Mills, Ghana's president, is dead.

He passed away yesterday Tuesday, July 24 2012 after a brief illness. I am sitting here on my bed here in Beijing, trying not to ask all the right questions. There's nobody to ask anyway. So instead of wondering to myself, I turn to the world, to Africa, to Ghana for answers.

Ghana may be praised as an icon of stability and democracy in the West African sub-region but ask any Ghanaian what Ghanaian politics is like and you will most likely receive a bitter response with subtle undertones of sarcasm. Why this unassuming, quiet law professor would venture into such shark infested waters is beyond me. But he did. And with that low-key persona and stubborn determination that so many have come to admire in him, he set himself about his duty, unperturbed by the brouhaha surrounding his public image  and term in office. As a matter of fact, only yesterday I read about how he had decreased the emoluments of the Members of Parliament, which I believe is a step in the right direction. There was an uproar of course by the MPs but like water off a duck's back, this man with excuse me to say 'balls of steel' stuck to his guns because he believed it was the right thing to do. If you are not familiar with Ghanaian politics you may not fully understand the ramifications of this action in an election year, when it is typical of sitting presidents seeking a second-term to put in place more 'favorable' policies.

So this is what I choose to remember him for. His balls of steel. Not for his illness, not for the pile of judgement debts uncovered in his administration, not for the feud between him and his party's founder, not for the rumors surrounding his personal and family life but for his balls of steel. Oh and his famous tongue slips. Who says you can't be a president and be funny? Though I don't think that's what he was driving at when he said 'ecomini' instead of 'economy' but hey this is Ghana, where everything is fair game for jokes.

Thank you kind Sir for your dedication to Ghana. RIP Your Excellency.