By Kwame Donkoh Fordwor, Kantinka
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
I begin my tribute to the memory of this great man of our times with the above quotation from the last six lines of the poem Ulysses by Lord Alfred Tennyson because I believe that they are particularly apt.
In the poem, Ulysses proclaims his resolution to push onward, in spite of his awareness that “death closes all”. In the final stanza, he addresses the mariners with whom he has worked, traveled, and weathered life’s storms over many years. The final line, "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield," has thus come to serve as a motto for many a people who long to flee the tedium of daily life "among these barren crags."
I have no doubt that these words provided inspiration to the late Reginald Reynolds Amponsah, popularly referred to as R.R, who passed away on June 3, 2009 at the age of 89. I believe they served to motivate him in the valiant battles that he waged against so many odds in his personal and political life; and I am convinced they contributed immensely to the victory that he finally won, not only for himself but also for the New Patriotic Party, for the Danquah-Busia Tradition and for Ghana as a whole. He has left behind a legacy of courage and determination in the face of great challenges; and this should serve as an example to guide the paths of all true NPP members. In other words, although he is carrying to Danquah and Busia the sad message that the NPP has just lost power through the fault of its own leaders and members, R.R. is also hoping and expecting that we who have been left behind will strive to get back to power, and that we will not yield until that victory has been achieved. R. R. whom we mourn today did exactly what Tennyson is telling us to do. On a typical day he would rise up early in the morning, say a few prayers before his breakfast, and then set out on the long and exhausting journey from Nungua to Party Headquarters in his Mercedes Caravan. And he would remain there for the entire day, undertaking various chores and assignments. He normally would not leave the office until sunset. R. R. lived and died for the Party. His purpose was to ensure that you and I, and all citizens of Ghana, would live in a country that seeks the goal of democracy in its governance and freedom and development for its citizens. Therefore, it was entirely fitting and proper that the old man was among the thirty people who were invested with the honour of a Member of the Order of the Star of Ghana during the Republic Day Celebrations in 2006. I first made his acquaintance in 1956 when he visited what was then the Kumasi College of Technology to meet his friend, the late S. K. Opoku, who was a Lecturer in the English Department. I had the opportunity to meet with him and to have a discussion about the National Liberation Movement (NLM). From that small beginning I became more and more attracted to him. In appearance he was dapper, always impeccably dressed. Tall and handsome, he cut a very dashing figure in a light grey or dark grey two-buttoned double-breasted suit, with a light blue shirt and a matching maroon or blue tie. I was tempted to steal glances at him. His conversation was always stimulating to the last. He had charm, generosity and courage. He never lost the common touch. He was deeply focused. He had immense commitment to, and compassion for, all kinds of people. Nothing was too much trouble for him. Above all, he was unfailingly courteous. He was a gentleman’s gentleman. The final lines of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar appropriately and correctly describe the nature and personality of the man: His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, “This was a man.” (Act 5, Scene Five).
R.R. Amponsah was educated at Achimota College, completing his course in 1942. Among his class mates were Victor Owusu, K.B. Asante, and Silas Duodu. He was a good organizer and it was no wonder that he was appointed a school prefect. He was gregarious, full of life, energetic and he was liked by many. Achimota at the time was not a school for students who were only interested in Greek, Latin and other purely academic studies. It was also a place for those who were interested in and appreciated the contribution of technology to development. Amponsah demonstrated a keen interest in ceramics, and particularly pottery. Those who knew him at the time narrate that he enjoyed nothing better than spending long periods by the kiln firing pottery. And it was remarkable that, no matter how late he stayed at the kiln, he would be at his best and in very good mood the next morning. This was the period of World War II, and Achimota was anxious to promote indigenous industry in the Gold Coast. Among others, it was recognized that there was a need for skills and facilities to help produce bricks, roofing and floor tiles, and pavement blocks. Because of his interest and demonstrated aptitude in the field, R. R. was awarded a scholarship to Loughborough College, at Stoke on Trent in England, for further studies in pottery. He was a keen student and he came out with flying colours, and was awarded the prize for pottery in his final examination.
On his return from the United Kingdom, RR was appointed as the Assistant Director of Education in Kumasi. It was about this time that Mr. Kwadwo Mercer, the Chairman of the Cocoa Marketing Board (CMB) had established the scholarship scheme for young Ghanaian students to undertake courses overseas, including in institutions in Germany. To assist these students to settle down in their assigned institutions, Mr. Mercer decided to appoint liaison officers to be stationed in the various countries. R.R Amponsah was selected as the liaison officer in Germany with his station in Stuttgart. In that capacity he helped the scholarship students in Germany to settle in, including arranging for the six months language training that they needed to be able to follow lessons in German in their assigned institutions. This turned out to be a great help to the students and enabled them to make the best use of their time; and it came as no surprise that most of the Ghanaian students qualified as medical officers in the same time as their German counterparts.
R.R was a loving and devoted husband to his wife, the former Miss Adelaide Afriyie. At the time of his death, they had been married for more than 55 years. He chose his wife with the same care that the lady would have chosen her wedding gown. In the words of Proverbs 31, he loved and respected her because she had been a woman of strength and dignity to him. Adelaide has always been a woman of few words but very wise ones. Hence, although RR accepted that there were other nice women in the world, he left no one in doubt that in his estimation Adelaide was the best woman and wife one could find anywhere. After her elementary school education at Mmofraturo in Kumasi, Adelaide went to Wesley Girls High School in Cape Coast where she obtained the Cambridge School Certificate in 1951. She then did the two year post-secondary teachers’ course at the Kumasi College of Technology. They were married on 19 December, 1953, soon after the completion of her course. From then on, as stated in Matthew Chapter 19, the couple lived as one, not two.
In the latter part of 1954, RR joined the NLM (National Liberation Movement) of which he subsequently became the General Secretary. He played a leading role in the Movement for many years. He accompanied Dr. Busia, J.A. Braimah, Paa Willie Ofori Atta to London in September 1956 to persuade the Colonial Secretary, Alan Lennox-Boyd, to visit the Gold Coast and to witness for himself the widespread demand for radical improvements in the proposed Constitution for Ghana at independence, especially the need for Regional Assemblies to ensure a measure of autonomy for the regions. The mission succeeded and Regional Assemblies were provided for in the 1957 Constitution, although Nkrumah eventually managed to abolish them.
In due course RR became the General Secretary of the United Party which was formed to bring together all the parties that were opposed to the CPP. Here too, R. R. went to great lengths to broaden the base of the new Party and to spread its message to the far corners of the country. Because of the energetic way in which he operated and the results that he was obtaining, it was not at all surprising that he became a target of Nkrumah and the CPP government. Thus, in September 1958, he was charged with sedition when he complained about the role of the police in aiding and abetting the Government to print false ballot papers for the elections to the Regional assembly elections. In the end the case against him was thrown out.
But this was not the end of his troubles. He was later accused of conspiring with Major Benjamin Awhaitey and Modesto Apaloo, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, to overthrow the government of Kwame Nkrumah. In spite of clear evidence that this was a false charge, a Commission appointed by the Government came to the ridiculous conclusion that there had been a conspiracy and that RR and Apaloo were involved in it. At a subsequent trial before a specially appointed court, they were found guilty and each was sentenced to seven years in prison with hard labour. At the end of their prison terms they were not released but were kept in detention under the Preventive Detention Act. It was only after the 1966 coup that deposed Nkrumah that they were released from prison.
Upon his return to Ghana in March 1966, only a few days after the deposition of Nkrumah and the CPP government, Dr Busia saw that urgent action was needed to rebuild the United Party. But Dr Busia himself could not undertake the necessary measures because of his close association with the NLC Administration which had appointed him the Chairman of the National Advisory Council. It was thus left to Baffour Akoto and R. R. Amponsah to bring together the supporters of the proscribed United Party and prepare for the formation of a new party as soon as the ban on political parties was lifted. At the invitation of these two gentlemen a number of leading stalwarts of the UP met in the house of Dr Busia in Little Legon, University of Ghana, to draw up a programme for the formation of the new political party. This was the Progress Party which eventually won 105 out of the 140 seats in the first parliamentary elections under Ghana’s Second Republic (1969).
R.R. Amponsah was appointed as the Minister for Land and Mineral Resources in the Progress Party Government. It was he who, in the first year of the Government, announced the discovery of off-shore petroleum resources in the Saltpond area. This led the population at large to believe that the country’s economic problems would soon be over. As it turned out, the reserves were not sufficient to satisfy Ghana’s own domestic requirements, let alone provide for exports. This meant that the improvement in employment that was expected from the resulting oil industry did not materialize.
Most people may not be aware of RR’s influence in the introduction of the 6:3:3 JSS/SSS system of education in Ghana. Based on his training in Achimota, he appreciated the importance of technical education. In his long term vision for Ghana he saw that the colonial system of education, based exclusively on academic studies, would be neither appropriate nor helpful to the country. In his view the system that Ghana had inherited was too “bookish” and was based unduly on “role learning”. He also felt that the administration and policies associated with this system of education had “out-lived” their usefulness. So, in October 1971, when he was the Minister for Education in the Busia Government, he invited memoranda from the public as part of a review of Ghana’s educational system. The 6:3:3 JSS/SSS concept, with the emphasis on hands-on technological approaches, was the outcome of this review. This resulted in a complete reform of the entire system of education that had been inherited from the colonial era. Following the overthrow of the Busia Government by Acheampong in 1972, the Progress Party was in the wilderness from 1972 to 1992. The ban on all political activity in the country meant that the members and officers of the Progress Party could not openly engage in any business relating to the Party. Consequently, they were obliged to “go underground” to keep the party machinery intact until the time when the country would once again revert to civilian constitutional government. However, the country-wide agitation against the Government of the SMC I and II enabled many of the leaders of the Progress Party to join with other groups in the country to put pressure on the military government. The Peoples Movement for Freedom and Justice (PMFJ) brought together people with different backgrounds and varying political persuasions. This gave the opportunity for RR to become active once again. When the ban on political activity was eventually lifted, RR made it clear that he was not in favour of a simple re-activation of the old Progress Party. Rather, he felt that what was needed was a more broad-based organisation. This view was not acceptable to many of the members of the old Progress Party; and the unwillingness of RR and several other members of the old Progress Party to go along with them led to the split in the Progress Party, resulting in the emergence of two different parties, namely, the Popular Front Party (PFP) and the United National Convention (UNC). The spilt contributed to the loss of the 1979 elections by the PFP. Although the loss of power caused a great deal of hard feelings, good sense finally prevailed and the members of the Danquah-Busia family came together once again in 1992, hopefully never to part again. The outcome of the re-union was the New Patriotic Party (NPP) which RR served with his usual dedication. At the time of his death, he was the Chairman of the Council of Elders of the NPP. For more than 20 years, the mainline churches in Kumasi i.e. the Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Anglican Church and the Methodist Church, have had an Association to promote ecumenism. It is not known by many people that RR has been a great supporter of this Association. The story of his contribution was told to me by Rev Yeboah Asuama, Anglican Bishop-elect for Sunyani, who is the secretary of the Association. According to him, it was at one of their meetings about ten years ago, while they were wondering how they could find the funds to establish a youth centre to train boys and girls in vocational activities that RR came on the scene. As he narrates it, there was a sudden tap on the door during their meeting, and when the door was open it was RR who had surprised them with a visit. He told them that he had come to explore the possibility of working with them to build an Ecumenical Youth Centre. It would take the form of a Vocational and Technical School whose aim would be to provide skill training to the youth in masonry, carpentry, dressmaking and fashion, computing and agricultural science. He offered them the sum of 100,000,000.00 cedis as seed money for the project. Subsequently, he donated a further 30,000,000.00 cedis to help acquire a 12.5 acre plot at Nkoranza on Kumasi-Bekwai road; and another 20,000,000.00 cedis to refurbish an office at Christian Village and to rehabilitate a car that had been provided by the Catholic Church for the use of the Centre. According to Rev. Yeboah Asuama, they were amazed that the Holy Spirit had used RR to bring them the good news. The Centre is currently engaged in training the future teachers in the school. Already it has two permanent teachers and a number of part-time teachers. Three classroom blocks have been completed and it is hoped that the Centre will be in full operation soon. The members of the Association and all who will benefit from the Centre will forever be grateful to R. R. Amponsah for his exceptional philanthropy. RR did not change his simple life-style when he was appointed a Minister of State, nor did he try to adopt an aristocratic or flamboyant life style when he was selected as the Chairman of the Council of Elders of the NPP, not even when the Party was in power from 2001 to 2008. We can only hope that his example will be emulated by future holders of the post, especially when the NPP next forms the Government of the country. Let us all hope that members of the NPP will be guided by the fine example that R. R. Amponsah has set for us, and that we shall all commit to memory the inspiring prayer of Saint Ignatius of Loyola
Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve,
To give and not to count the cost,
To fight and not to heed the wounds,
To toil and not to seek for rest,
To labour and not to ask for any reward,
Save that of knowing that we do your will.
That is the only way we can hope to serve Ghana as Tennyson recommends and in the manner that our dear RR would expect of us.
Dear RR, Rest in Perfect Peace.
