We Wish Ken Speedy Recovery

Announcement that former Finance Minister and, presently, Finance Minister-Designate Kenneth Kuntunkununku Ofori-Atta was on Sunday, Feb. 14, flown to the United States of America for treatment of medical complications developed as a result of his treatment for a COVID-19 infection, must serve as a warning to the government about the dire need for both the construction and the upgrading of our hospitals and health centers to global standards (See “Ken Ofori-Atta Flies to US for Medical Care after Treating COVID-19” Modernghana.com 2/15/21). Sixty-four years of postcolonial rule ought to have brought us on par in healthcare development with at least the most advanced of the Third-World countries.

Anyway, in a letter released to the media by the Public Relations Department of the Ministry of Finance, which Mr. Ofori-Atta has efficiently headed for some four years now, the public was also informed that the nature of the Finance Minister’s ailment was such that the only medical facility on Earth that could handle it was right here in the United States of America. Now, I find the preceding to be, at best, speculative and at the worst simply scandalous, if also because the COVID-19 Pandemic and its concomitant variants have taken a seismic toll on American citizens in ways not recognized or experienced anywhere else in the world, amidst all the self-preening talk about the United States’ being privileged with the best healthcare system in the world.

And to be certain, I, personally, sincerely do not suppose for a whiff of breath that in a global ranking of the finest hospitals and health centers, that any US hospital would be likely to place among the top 5 or even 10 finest hospitals. Still, what is most worthy of note here is the fact that Mr. Ofori-Atta may very well have opted for treatment here in the United States because he spent a considerable length of time schooling in two of the best tertiary academies here in the United States, namely, New York City’s Columbia University, and the New Haven, Connecticut, located Yale University, reputed to have one of the largest hospitals in the world, with 1,541 (one-thousand, five-hundred-and-forty-one) beds. Mr. Ofori-Atta also worked for some time on Wallstreet, New York City’s world’s leading financial market. So, it is purely a question of comfort and confidence.

Thus, outside of Ghana, it was all too natural that Mr. Ofori-Atta would choose to receive medical treatment here in the United States. Now, whatever the quiddities of his post-COVID treatment complications may be, the fact remains glaring that this past year was a very difficult one for the Akufo-Addo cousin, including the traumatic passing of his even more prominent and distinguished father, namely, Dr. Jones Ofori-Atta, an astute and seasoned politician and Deputy Finance Minister in the cabinet of the Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia-led Progress Party (PP) government. So, it may not be altogether anomalous if it should also turn out that this very hardworking Finance Minister has been suffering from a significant level of emotional stress and fatigue, partially caused by grieving his father’s passing.

Personally, I have been quietly grieving the passing of the former Popular-Front Party Parliamentarian for Akyem-Begoro in Ghana’s Third Republic, partly being that Dr. Ofori-Atta was my own father’s cousin and had personally put in a presence at my late father’s funeral and memorial service in Kyebi in January 2002. Not only that, after that memorial service, a knickerbockers and local fabric decked Dr. Ofori-Atta reached out to each and every one of my siblings and had us introduce ourselves, individually, to him. The late Dr. Jones Ofori-Atta was ten years younger than my father and lived ten years longer than the old man, with whom they were both contemporaries at the University of Ghana in the 1960s. My father also used to regale me with some rascally stories about Uncle Kwasi Jones, including how Volta Hall, the all-female hostel or dormitory at Legon, came into existence.

I have told this story several times before in some previous columns, to the ire and envy of one inveterate Akufo-Addo detractor and so do not feel the need to retell the same here again, except to say that Dr. Jones Ofori-Atta was one of my Kyebi and Begoro relatives of whom I felt especially proud. Of course, I was equally proud of Mr. William “Paa Willie” Ofori-Atta, about whom I have written quite considerably, but I found Dr. Jones Ofori-Atta to be easily the more down-to-earth or affable of the two half-brothers. I suspect that Uncle Kwasi Jones was also the last son or child of Osagyefo Nana Sir Ofori-Atta, I. You see, I never really had the chance to spend any considerable length of time with my Kyebi paternal relatives. Not by choice, by the way, so I do not tend to know much about this side of the old man’s family and clan.

At any rate, I wrote this brief serendipitous note to wish Cousin Ken a speedy recovery. He may actually be my uncle, though he is only a couple of years older than yours truly. Then, also, I wanted to add that the Agyapa Mineral Investment Deal Scandal may equally well have taken considerable toll on the health of my relative, especially that aspect of the Jubilee House spat with the strategically blindsiding Mr. Martin ABK Amidu, the former Independent Special Prosecutor. Which was why I could not have been more elated a couple of days ago, when Mr. Ofori-Atta publicly announced that he was pulling up stakes, that is, he would no longer have his firm, Databank, participate in the Agyapa Deal as a major consultant to the same. He, of course, could have done this much sooner. But then, whoever said it was never better late than never ever?

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

February 15, 2021

E-mail: [email protected]