Editorial: Welcoming a Ghanaian Icon

...the immediate past UN Secretary General Kofi Annan would be returning home after years of distinguished service at the United Nations. As the chief civil servant/diplomat of the world, he served the whole of mankind, but as a Ghanaian, he represented national pride for us.

If there was one major free PR image for Ghana in the last decade it was Kofi Annan. Just as Dr. Kwame Nkrumah became an African icon in the immediate post independence era of the 50s and 60s, Kofi Annan in the closing years of the last century and the beginning of this new century also assumed an equally visible and honourable image for Africa.

As he returns home tomorrow, it is with pride that we welcome him and hope that we will accord him the honour and dignity he deserves. We must also not push him into any political partisanship. He himself has said that he would need a period of quiet and reflection. Let us not deny him this simple request.

Welcome home, Sir.