The living story of the poor village boy who became the first presiding bishop

I enjoy reading biographies but I have over-enjoyed reading the autobiography of the Most Rev. Dr. Asante Antwi. His book, 'Samuel Asante Antwi – a living story' is 160-pages of courage, perseverance, patriotism, Christian teachings and achievements of a poor, village boy who saw the heavens as the limit and rose through the firmaments   to become the First Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church, Ghana.

This autobiography can also be described as a biography of Ghana, from 1937, through the formation of the UGCC in 1947, the confidence and pride of a young, nation with an energetic leadership after Independence after 1957, the dictatorship of the 1960s, the short constitutional interludes, coups and more coups before the last push for the longest, most stable period of constitutional rule since 1957. Remarkably, the Asante boy born in that small Akyem village played a major role in the events leading to and shaping the 1992 constitutional arrangement.

As the author puts it, “”Seventy years ago, who among the inhabitants of Juaben, Kasaam and Moseaso, would have thought that the young, energetic, skinny boy from that poor home would become a Presiding Bishop over the souls of millions of people?” And, he proceeds to answer, “Well, that is how God works.” The book is full of gratitude to God, his poor but loving parents, his teachers, and others for what they have done for him and what he has, in turn, paid society back with his blessings.

It is a biography extraordinaire, in that it fills you up with spiritual nutrients as you cut through the sumptuous menu of a great Man of God and a great patriot of Ghana's seven decades on earth. Not many books have inspired many a sceptic like me like this biography has. The nation owes him a great gratitude for both his spiritual leadership and political guidance.

To the youth, the former Member of the Council of State says, you have to “work diligently, prepare adequately and acquire skills, knowledge and experience to make God's plan for your life come to pass in His time... Be focused and get all the trainings and preparations you need. Never allow anything else to distract you and cause a dent or detour in your pursuit of purpose and destiny.”

He defines the character of leadership saying in Godly leadership everything rises and falls on character. “A leader with a shallow character will crumble under the pressure of the people he leads.” He makes the Lincolnian point that it is “one thing to have character and another to have a reputation.” To use Abraham Lincoln's own words, “Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow.”

What struck me most in reading the book was his reference to Peggy Noonan's definition of character “In a President, character is everything. A president doesn't have to be brilliant... He doesn't have to be clever; you can hire clever... You can hire pragmatic, and you can buy and bring in policy wonks. But you can't buy courage and decency; you can't rent a strong moral sense. A president must bring those things with him... He needs to have, in that much maligned word, but a good one nonetheless, a 'vision' of the future he wishes to create... But a vision is worth little if a president doesn't have the character – the courage and heart – to see it through.”

But, like Saint Augustine, John Calvin, Martin Luther King Jnr, Desmond Tutu and others on the long alter of the priesthood and political activism, besides being, in his own   words, a doctor healing souls, Rev. Dr. Asante Antwi has played a pivotal role in the long fought struggle for democracy in Ghana. In his book, he produces part of a very fearless article he wrote in 1987 against the fierce military dictatorship of the Provisional National Democratic Council, which was in its sixth year of ensuring a 'culture of silence' in Ghana. The Methodist priest wrote: “The PNDC should disarm itself completely, stand before Ghanaians and say it has woefully failed the nation.” It took them another five years to put that question indirectly to Ghanaians in that controversial presidential election.

He used the pulpit, evangelism and the pen to seek to exorcise oppression from the body politic of Ghana. In his own words, “I had been openly critical of the PNDC Government and had been voicing out in articles and preaching on the atrocities the military rulers had unleashed on innocent and peace-loving Ghanaians, especially during the early days of the PNDC era. I spoke out against atrocities such as: confiscation of property, destruction of property, whipping of market women in public places, rape of innocent women, and murder of all kinds.”

His strong sense of justice is a product of his upbringing. As the Most Rev. Peter K. Sarpong, Catholic Bishop Emeritus of Kumasi, states in his eloquent foreword, the “author was very lucky in his early ages to be linked to an affectionate family replete with a rare depth of culture, from where he learnt the traditions, the modes of ways, the general mores of society.”

His grandfather was a Muslim, Kramo Kwasi Opoku, from Juaben, a rich blend of a background which rooted in him a spirit of tolerance so broad, except when it comes to the toleration of injustice against his fellow human being. Born in the small Akyem Abuakwa village of Moseaso, on Saturday, 22 nd May, 1937, his home education started at so young an age that by six he was effectively a historian who could recite folklore and oral history passed down to him by his traditional tutors, his grandparents.

His narration of how children were brought up in those at the ruling setting is very instructive. As a school boy, his father gave him part of his cocoa farm to work with and use the proceeds from it to pay his way through education. But even before he got to that age, he had benefited from the classical Akan education of story-telling. He describes how “We loved to gather at the feet of the aged and listen intently as they told us fantastic stories and myths... At a tender age of about six years, my mind was already so fertile that I could think through and creatively imagine and replay movies in my mind, using the stories they told me.”

He attributes his character to the environment in which he was brought up, the “convergence and integration of the Akan cultural and traditional values, disposition, religious and moral education as well as the Christian values of my parents and grandparents.”  

No wonder he is “tempted to conclude that our childhood days were far better than that of the 21 st Century child growing up in urban and suburban communities.” Why not? Television, DVD, video games, the internet and the usual toys of today is stifling the creativity of the modern kid, he opines, who are reduced to pushing buttons. In the author's generation and rural setting, necessity was the grandmother of creativity. Before his eight birthday he was his own fashion designer, using his father's sewing machine to make his own shirts and patch up torn clothes. He calls it “instructive upbringing.” The kind of upbringing many cannot buy.

He cleverly links that kind of endangered upbringing to the lack of career guidance and counselling in our schools today and in our entire national career/employment system. His advice is that “our children must be guided and encouraged to choose and pursue subjects and courses that are in line with their God-given, natural temperaments, talents, gifts, proficiency and interests. Indeed, our children need to pursue purpose-driven lives.”

The story also tells of how active the traditional leaders were then in bringing development to their areas. One of the schools he attended, the Methodist-Presbyterian School was established by the Queen Mother of Moseaso. He also tells how what, perhaps, made the quality of education in those days far superior to what we have now. The teacher had pride and dignity. He says those days being a teacher, even a pupil teacher, “was a very respectable job and it was a fulfilling work.” So fulfilling was the teaching profession that at the age of 23, he had saved enough money from teaching to build a two-bedroom house.

He first became a teacher, as a teenager after his Middle School education, undertaking a Pupil Teachers' Training Course at Atibie, Kwahu to learn the basic skills in teaching. From there he went to the Komenda Teachers' Training College, where among the list of his teachers were L.A. Creedy, Victoria Sackey and Atta Mills – yes Atta Mills.  

He was also skilful in football, becoming a founding member of the Susubribi Football Club, where he played against big teams such as Kotoko, the Republicans and the Academicals of the 1960s.

It was also in the 60s that his career in the clergy took shape, after spending four years studying pastoral ministry at the Trinity College. He was ordained in 1972 and followed that two years later with study tours to the United States and the United Kingdom. His studies took him to the prestigious Yale University where he completed his Master's degree in 1977 and to Aberdeen University for his PhD, which he completed in 1980.

His forebears, originally from Duase, near Kumasi, were refugees, who migrated from Juaben to the Eastern Region, first in New Juaben where the Okyenhene allowed the refugees to settle. I was interested in writing this review because the author is not only a great man of our life time but a member of the governing board of the Danquah Institute.

Little did I expect that going through his biography I would discover that we are related. His father was of the Oyoko Abusua at Juaben Mmorontuo, same as my father. Indeed, my father, Dr Joseph Boateng Otchere-Darko, is the current Mmorontuohene of New Juaben.

Perhaps, no other member of the clergy has played the kind of active role that the Most Rev Dr Asante Antwi played in bringing about the current nature of Ghana's multiparty democracy. This is because he is one of the two main instruments behind what is the New Patriotic Party. The NPP traces its roots through the PP, UNC, PP, UP and way back to the UGCC of 1947. But it had to be rebuilt in 1992 and that process started in 1991 with the Danquah-Busia Memorial Club which was formed in Kumasi.

In his own words, the author narrates, “I became a co-founder and spokesman of the Danquah-Busia Memorial Club with the late Opanyin Attakora Gyimah, a journalist, on 23 rd February, 1991 in Kumasi. There were twenty one original members. We were encouraged by Appiah Menkah, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Dr Addo Kufuor, Dr Sarfo Adu, Dr Donkor Fordwour, Gyamfi Bikkai, Maxwell Owusu, Baafour Osei Akoto, Ivor Agyeman Dua.” He names some of the others as J A Kufuor, Yaw Osafo Maafo, Dr Amoako Tuffuor, Richard Anane, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, Kwaku Dua, Courage Quashigah, Madam Gladys Asmah, Madam Ama Busia, Gifty Ayeh, Prof Adu Boahen, Dr Djane Selby, Felicia Kufuor, B J da Rocha, R R Amponsah, Theresa Tagoe, Peter Ala Adjetey, Odoi Sykes, Jake Obestebi-Lamptey, Hackman Owusu-Agyeman, Rev Kodua, Stephen Krakue, J A addison and Dan Botwe.    

“This club was the harbinger of the NPP, he writes, adding, “We taught and mobilised support for the pillars and democratic ideas” of the Danqua-Dombo-Busia tradition throughout Ghana.

But, though he was ready to retreat from frontline politics since his years of prayers were answered with the 1992 presidential elections, presidential ballot papers in a rubbish dump were found by a school child in his neigbourhood on the morning of polling day, forming some of the evidential bases of 'Stolen Verdict' with the opposition NPP describing the election as rigged and boycotting the subsequent parliamentary elections.

The author, citing Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rev Jesse Jackson and others, argues, “There are many Christian leaders who have and are playing crucial roles in the body politic of their nations.” He says, “I have played my role here in Ghana.”

I will say, Sir, your role for Ghana is far from spent. The length of your days will be beyond eighty, because God has given you the strength.

Printed by Digibooks Ghana Ltd, 2011. ISBN 978 9988 1 4630 6

 
The author is the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute. [email protected]