Gov’t to honour Kofi Awoonor

Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Finance, James Klutse Avedzi, has hinted that, government has decided to name the Ketu North District Hospital, after the literature Don; Prof Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor, to honour his memory.

The new District hospital, to be situated in Wheta; Prof. Awoonor’s hometown, is among the five new district hospitals and a Polyclinics to be built with an 89 million euro facility.

James Avedzi, who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Ketu North Constituency, announced this at the first ever Rice Festival of the Chiefs and the people of the area, recently.

The MP, also informed the gathering that the GETfund was in the process of awarding a 12-unit classroom block for the Weta Secondary Technical School.

According to him, the contract for the Weta road to Ehi, has been awarded.

On her part, former Transport Minister, Dzifa Aku Attivor, who was the Special Guest of Honour, assured the people of government’s commitment to continue to extend development to every corner of the country.

She asked the people of the Volta Region, to continue to support the John Mahama government.

She insisted it was only the NDC government that caters for the wellbeing of all Ghanaians.

Prof. Kofi Anyidoho , Council Chairman for the University of Health and Allied Sciences, was also in attendance.

Prof. Anyidoho, who is also literature don and poet, was a very good friend of the late Prof. Awoonor.

Prof. Awoonor was Ghana’s ambassador to Brazil from 1984 to 1988, before serving as the country’s ambassador to Cuba.

From 1990 to 1994, Prof. Awoonor, was Ghana’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, where he headed the committee against apartheid.

He was also a former Chairman of the Council of State, the main advisory body to the president of Ghana, serving in that position from 2009 to January 2013.

On 21 September 2013, Awoonor, was among those killed in an attack at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi. He was in Kenya as a participant in the Storymoja Hay Festival, a four-day celebration of writing, thinking and storytelling, at which he was due to perform on the evening of his death.

His nephew, Nii Parkes, who was attending the same literary festival, has written about meeting him for the first time that day. The Ghanaian government, confirmed Awoonor’s death the next day. His son, Afetsi Awoonor, who accompanied him was also shot, but was later discharged from hospital.

Prof. Awoonor’s remains were flown from Nairobi to Accra, Ghana, on 25 September 2013.

His body was cremated and buried at a particular spot in his hometown at Wheta in the Volta Region. There was no crying or mourning at his funeral, all according to his will before death.

The Ghanaian poet and author, whose work combined the poetic traditions of his native Ewe people and contemporary and religious symbolism to depict Africa during decolonization, started writing under the name George Awoonor-Williams, but later published as Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor. He taught African literature at the University of Ghana (UG).