Parliamentarians pay tribute to the late Kojo Armah

Members of Parliament (MPs) on Friday paid tribute to the late Mr Kojo Armah, former Member of Parliament (MP) for Evalue Gwira, who passed away last May at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital after a short illness.

Mr Osei Kyei-Mensa-Bonsu, Minority Leader, described the late legislator as having discharged his duties so well.

He has performed his duties to his Creator, the community and Ghana.He was a well-known cadre and acquitted himself creditably to Ghana,”Mr Kyei-Mensa-Bonsu added.

Describing the late Mr Armah as a personal friend, the Minority Leader extended condolence to the family of the late legislator, who was also an educationist, a linguist, lawyer, and a diplomat, saying “we join the family in their grief; we console them and sob with them.”

Mr Kyei-Mensa-Mensa-Bonsu recalled having a personal conversation two weeks before the demise of the late Mr Armah, and added that he was shell-shocked when after travelling back from up country only to read of the death of his colleague in a newspaper.

“I was shell shocked. I never imagined he was going to depart under such circumstances.

“I loved him well, but I believe that the Creator loves him better; that is why He decided to call him.”

The Minority Leader, who is also the MP for Suame on the ticket of the Minority New Patriotic Party (NPP), recalled that the late Mr Armah and himself had entered Parliament in 1997, and they both had joined the Minority Caucus.

The late Kojo Armah, however, lost his seat in 2000, and was later appointed the Municipal Chief Executive for Nzema East from 2000 to 2004, “but he discharged his duties so well, which enabled him to come back in 2005 to represent the Constituency once again,” Mr Kyei-Mensa-Bonsu said, adding “he was a committed CPP member.”

Dr Benjamin Kunbuor, Majority Leader and MP for Nandom, described the late Kojo Armah as somebody he had known “in this House as a very senior politician.

“I used to call him the ‘Grandfather of the Back Bench,’” adding that in his interactions with him, he often said the CPP would always go into alliance, but would never sacrifice its ideology.

“He was a father figure in the politics of this country,” Dr Kunbuor said, and recalled the call of the late legislator for the institutionalization of a program for former MPs to survive what he called “the post parliamentary traumatic experience.”

Members observed a minute silence for their late colleague, after which the Speaker Mr Edward Doe Adjaho said “may his soul rest in perfect peace.”

Meanwhile, a former Media Aide to the late MP, Evans Osei Baffour, has announced that the final funeral rites of the late Kojo Armah, who died on Sunday, May 4, 2014, would be held from July 4-July 6, 2014.

There would be a pre- burial Mass for him on Friday, July 4 at the St John Fisher Catholic Church at Achimota at 9am.

On Saturday July5, 2014, there will be a burial mass at the St Anthony Catholic Church, Axim at 0900 hours with final funeral rites at the Victoria Park, Axim immediately after his burial.

The late Kojo Armah, a Catholic, was 68, and left behind a wife and three children.