- He believed a better world was possible but not certain – therefore, we had to organise, mobilise and strategise while working hard for it
In memoriam Akoto Ampaw — I was out of university in quarter four of 1992. Ghana was in the throes of a demilitarisation and democratisation process. The second Jerry Rawlings sensation – his incarnation as leader of the military government of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) – was about to give way. To usher in a true constitutional democracy, or so we hoped. But we were in no doubt that democratisation still had a long and precarious journey to undertake in Ghana.
On that basis, straight out of university, I sought out some of the known leaders of “the struggle” at the time. This was how I got to meet Kwesi Pratt Jnr. And, a few months in to 1993, got introduced to people like Akoto Ampaw and a host of other prominent leaders of the struggle.
In 1993, Pratt and I had been to see Akoto Ampaw at his residence in North Kaneshie, Accra. Like many, I had heard lots about him. The man we called Sheey Sheey was a stalwart in the struggle for democracy and a thorn in the side of Jerry Rawlings. As proof of that, he had a long record of arrests, detentions, persecution, even physical abuse and all manner of harassment.
In 1991 my friend in Katanga Hall at university Daniel Owusu-Koranteng had given me a document, tucked under his shirt.
It was one of these cyclostyled documents, done from a stencil – younger generations will have no idea what I am talking about. But such were the times; the culture of silence in Ghana marked a dreadful period of fear. Fear of the Ghanaian Gestapo!
I had walked to my room and read the document in secrecy.
Revolutionary of note
It was a well-argued position by the New Democratic Movement (NDM), taking on neoliberal capitalism generally but, more specifically, the Structural Adjustment Programme/Economic Recovery Programme incarnation (SAP/ERP) that the Jerry Rawlings government had implemented with the undiluted zeal of fundamentalists. Akoto Ampaw had authored the paper.
I thought it was brilliantly argued, balanced and written with tremendous intellectual rigour. That was my first encounter of any sort with Sheey Sheey. It was from him, in 1991, that I first learned the expression comprador bourgeoisie.
Therefore, that night when I first met him physically, it was with heightened expectations. The kind that a 23-year-old can cultivate for a revolutionary of note. Yet I found Sheey Sheey easygoing. He spoke like a serious thinker. I was clear in my mind that he had all the physical features of an ancient philosopher. I was struck also by the fact that he laughed a lot and that though he was by far my senior comrade, he was very interested in my point of view.
I got to know Sheey Sheey better over time. In those days, there were audio cassette recordings of speeches that were passed around in a clandestine manner in our underground channels. Along with photocopies of all kinds of what were described by the Gestapo as seditious material.
You kept the volume of your sound system down as much as possible when listening, lest the Gestapo be lurking.
Unapologetic pragmatist
It was through the same channels that we later started to receive video tapes playing back interviews of the leaders of aspects of the pan-African struggle. Ngugi, Soyinka, Mamdani, A M Babu and others featured. And one day I was dazzled by the brilliance in their midst of a young Kenyan woman, Wangui wa Goro. Imagine my joy when I recently reconnected with Wangui.
I found Sheey Sheey to be a calm, methodical, systemic, rigorous and strategic thinker. He had true intellectual depth and solidity. In the midst of many juvenile radicals, living on an interpretation of Marxism that had not progressed beyond 1848, I admired Sheey Sheey greatly. He stood out for me. He thought long-term and in pragmatic ways. He was a doer, not just a talker.
If Sheey Sheey was calm and methodical, he was definitely neither meek nor weak. He was a man of incredible stamina and had an outrageous capacity for work. His courage was meteoric. And when Sheey had to fight, he fought back with his all.
One story I was told by Pratt’s family will suffice. I was not present when this occurred but it was narrated to me. Kwesi Pratt had done a tour of the UK, drumming up support for the struggle in Ghana. He had pulled no punches in revealing that Ghana was dealing with: what one author described as the “era of blood and thunder”.
In those times, this was suicidal. It was obvious to all that the Ghanaian Gestapo would pounce on Pratt on his return to Accra. The comrades in London therefore asked Pratt to stay on and officially live in exile, but he refused. That set the scene for a confrontation with the Ghanaian Gestapo.
On the day of his arrival at Accra airport, Kwesi Pratt’s long-suffering wife, Marian, went to the airport to meet him. Comrade Sheey Sheey and the ferocious lawyer John Ndebugre had gone ahead. They saw Kwesi disembark from the plane, and then he disappeared.
After a while Sheey and Ndebugre asked for the whereabouts of their friend and got no answers. Sheey Sheey broke loose and all hell descended on the airport. With his gaunt body, he physically pushed past the operatives of the Gestapo and demanded – screaming at the top of his voice – that his comrade be released.
The Gestapo were startled. What were they to do in front of international visitors to the country? Sheey Sheey and Ndebugre, both now gone to be with the ancestors, spotted someone who was with the BBC Africa Service at the time. She is still alive but I have no idea whether it is all right to mention her name here, so I will not. She had seen the commotion, they explained what it was about and she wired a story that Pratt had been arrested. The news went international and spurred outrage.
Embarrassed and stunned, the Gestapo released Kwesi Pratt. To Kwesi’s children, Uncle Sheey Sheey was the man.
He was calm, patient, gentle but if you provoked him beyond reason, you saw the fearless revolutionary.
I was there the night he told the comrades he was finally going to do the professional law exams that he had put off for years. I was there when he passed out and what seemed like the entire front bench of the Ghanaian pro-democracy movement turned up to see him qualify as a lawyer. Professor Adu Boahen led them; he was very fond of Sheey Sheey.
I was there when he scanned which options of law chambers Akoto Ampaw should join. Kwesi Pratt was adamant that it had to be the then mesmerising Akufo-Addo’s chambers, and eventually Sheey Sheey did join that. Together with now President Akufo-Addo, he set up what became one of the most courageous and tireless efforts to defend media freedom against the hammer fist of the Gestapo.
Defender of journalists
Sheey Sheey worked nights without sleeping, pro bono. He trained journalists in the law – I know, because I was then a member of the Ghana Journalists Association and a newspaper columnist. When Charles Wereko Brobby took Ghana’s airwaves by storm and cracked them open by launching a private radio station, in defiance of the Gestapo, Akufo-Addo and Sheey Sheey were the courageous lawyers who handled the matter.
Sheey Sheey was a prolific and capable writer. He wrote for justice and a better society. His writing was an emblematic part of his revolutionary arsenal. Many times I wondered whether he ever slept. I hardly ever saw him eat a full meal.
In the days of the Alliance for Change, I saw again all the qualities that I outlined earlier. Though there was no such position, he was the de facto secretary of the group – diligent and very, very hard working.
There was the fun side of Sheey Sheey as well. Once at Professor Kwame Karikari’s residence when I saw Sheey Sheey dancing, I said Fela Kuti would be no match for him and he laughed heartily.
When I saw him drinking champagne at Wereko Brobby’s wedding, and remarked that he had betrayed the proletariat by joining the bourgeoisie to sample its delights, he guffawed. And shot back, with loud laughter, that champagne is produced by the proletariat and he had every intention to reward their labour. He had a keen sense of humour.
Human rights champion
Sheey Sheey had a very successful professional career, eventually becoming the managing partner of his firm. That surprised very few. Akoto Ampaw came to be the lawyer of the President of the Republic, his ex-comrade. And his name will for ever be written in gold in human rights law and more.
He was a very committed and truly knowledgeable pan-Africanist. A man who was not detained by doctrinaire approaches.
When many of our ex-comrades took up positions in government, I would sometimes call Sheey Sheey to help me keep my sanity. I watched with disgust as the neoliberal agenda and the bourgeois embrace unfolded in some quarters. I could no longer recognise some of these comrades. He always made time to speak with me.
In the past few years, my career took me all over and I was not able to keep in touch as much. A few of us had wanted Sheey Sheey to be part of an event we were organising, when we learned he was unwell and could not do so. At the time, I thought it was something fleeting. Then my friend Kwame Sarpong Asiedu told me Sheey was quite ill. After I referred to Sheey Sheey in a public speech, Professor Kwame Karikari asked me whether I was aware he was unwell and gave me a few more details.
I still thought I would see Sheey Sheey again and tell him to look after himself well. Until, about a month before he passed, I had this inexplicable sense that I would never again see Comrade Sheey alive.
I started to harass a mutual friend by phone, not really knowing what I was demanding. Unable to deal with the possibility that finality was drawing close.
A better world
One morning there was a cryptic text, which I only read hours later, as I was locked in a meeting.
It was from Kwame Sarpong Asiedu, saying: “I hear Akoto Ampaw is gone, is that confirmed?” Right after that was another text from Professor Kwame Karikari, announcing to me that his long-term friend Sheey Sheey had passed away at 7am that morning.
Alas, only God is immortal. Sheey Sheey was only human. Those who expect perfection from any human being are unreasonable lunatics.
People – everyone, it seemed – had a tall list of what Sheey Sheey should do. How could any people be such ingrates? Sheey Sheey lived much of his life for the struggle without being a public officer. Those who wanted more from him should try to do 10% of what Sheey Sheey achieved in this life, rather than always thinking about someone else doing what they want.
Like Samir Amin and his “Gang of Four”, Akoto Ampaw believed a better world was possible but not certain. Therefore, we had to organise, mobilise and strategise while working hard for it. He lived for this commitment and he died believing in the possibility of a better world.
Until we meet again, my Senior Comrade, friend, mentor and compatriot: for those of us left out here, in this Robinson Crusoe Society, trying to understand the Santa Claus democracy spawned by neoliberalism, it is A luta continua!
May you finally, finally, find rest, Comrade Sheey. If any man can be said to have done his bit, it is you. Adieu. Nante yie, Akoto Ampaw.
Based in the UK, Yaw Nsarkoh is the executive vice-president of Unilever Ghana and Nigeria and a non-executive director of Development Bank Ghana
This is an edited version of an article that first appeared on Yaw Nsarkoh’s wall on Facebook
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