The Life And Times Of KB Asante

Birth and Early Years

Mr. Kwaku Baprui Asante was born in Accra on 26th March, 1924 at 2 pm. As he recounts, his birthplace was near the Central Post Office, not far from Holy Trinity Church where he was baptised. His grandmother came from Aduamoa, Kwahu to settle in Accra with his father, Mr. Kweku Asante, who was about four years old at the time. Mr Kweku Asante’s father was from the North, and he grew up in Accra and married Mary Odorso Amoo, a Ga woman from Otublohum with some Ewe heritage.

KB, as his friends called him, believed that the only wise thing he ever did was to choose his parents well; they gave him an excellent upbringing and he had a happy childhood. He described his father as a very progressive man who had great ideas about self-reliance and getting to the top through hard work. His father studied surveying in England and became the most senior African surveyor in Ghana. Mr. Kweku Asante believed strongly in education, and ensured that all his children received a good education. KB’s mother, was a very hardworking woman who took very good care of the home – she was always in the kitchen preparing food for the family and offering any support they needed.

KB was the first son of his mother’s six children, and had two brothers and four sisters. He was brought up in a family of women and this, he said, was the reason for his affection towards women. Anytime he went home from school, food was ready.

KB therefore considered himself one of the few truly Ghanaian citizens being neither Ga, Kwahu, Ewe nor Grunshie but a fusion of the distinguishing characteristic of the Ghanaian namely, industrious when compelled, indolent when he can get away with it and garrulous until relieved by sleep.

Education

A Sierra Leonean called O’Reilly established the O’Reilly Educational Institute at Tudu, which included the first kindergarten in the country. So in 1927, at the age of three, KB enrolled with his sister, Keli, motivated by the bofrote and condensed milk that his sister bought for him on their way to school. At the age of five, he joined the Adabraka Junior Boys School (where Ga was the medium of instruction for the first three years), and after four years, moved to the Government Senior Boys School (now the Kinbu Senior High School).

He proceeded to the Middle School of Achimota College in 1938 and completed his Cambridge Certificate in 1942. All his siblings also attended Achimota School. KB could boast of an eminent Achimota College class of 1942 that included personalities such as: Professor Silas Dodu, the first Professor and Dean of the Ghana Medical School, University of Ghana, Legon; Professors Albert Tackie and Addo Kuffour of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology; Mr. Victor Owusu, the great legal brain of Okomfo Anokye Chambers; Joe Reindorf, a former Attorney-General, Mr. R.R. Amponsah; Dr. Armar of the Methodist Church; and Ambassador Richard Akwei.

At Achimota, he and his fellow students were encouraged to learn but also to apply what they had learnt. They were trained not to cheat their fellow countrymen but rather to use their position to help others. They were taught that, but for the grace of God, they would not have attained their status. They were expected to give service at Achimota village and other places. Their holistic education included drumming and their social history in order to learn their culture, equip them with knowledge and understanding to be able to promote it.

In 1948, at the age of 24, KB proceeded to Durham University in England to study Mathematics, with Physics as a subsidiary, and graduated in 1952. He obtained the prize for Market and Opinion Research at the examination of the London Institute of Statisticians. He did not pursue any other academic course but his firm belief in lifelong learning led him to always seek knowledge without focusing on formal qualifications. As he often said, you learn all the time and the last lesson in life is death.

Family

While in England, he served as the president of the Gold Coast Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland because of the zeal he had in politics and his desire to see Ghana as a free and self-reliant country. The treasurer of the Union at the time was Miss Matilda Adzele Dzagbele Anteson. One thing led to another and KB at the age of thirty-four, got married to Matilda. Interestingly, it turned out that before their marriage, they had family on the same road in Adabraka, Accra but never met until they got to England.

KB had five children: three boys and two girls, ten grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. KB however had many more who saw him as father and grandfather, and the young boy in him always came out when he had children around him.

The Teacher

In 1943, while waiting for the results of the Cambridge School Certificate, KB taught Mathematics at New Juaben Grammar School, to help a family friend. During the Second World War, as most European teachers at Achimota School went back to Europe to be drafted into their national armies, there was a staff shortage. KB was therefore invited to help relieve the shortage of staff by teaching Mathematics, Physics and Ga.

He was only a few years older than his students, and the class he taught from 1945 all had ‘A’ at the Cambridge School Certificate Examination in 1947. As KB recounts, it was a brilliant class but he was given all the credit and was wrongly believed to be an excellent teacher The students he taught included J.H. Mensah (former Senior Minister in John Agyekum Kuffour’s administration), Professor Adjei Bekoe, and Professor Ben Aidoo. It was after teaching briefly at Achimota that he left for London for his first and only degree.


On his return from England in 1952, he was appointed Senior Mathematics Master of Achimota College in 1954 and later elected, as a staff representative, to the then autonomous Achimota College Council which run the college on a government subvention without any further interference. He was also the Housemaster of Aggrey House in this period.


The Diplomat and Public Servant

K B Asante left Achimota to join Ghana’s Foreign Service at its inception. As an introduction to the mysteries of the Civil Service, he worked at the Finance Department where he drafted the last budget of the Gold Coast in 1956. His ability to switch careers proved that as Chinua Achebe put it “teaching is a noble profession” and can serve as a fit preparation for a wide range of careers.

He served as 3rd Secretary of the British Embassy in Ankara and Consular Attaché at the Consulate-General in Istanbul for his in-service training in diplomacy. His first diplomatic post was London where he helped turn the Gold Coast Office into the Ghana High Commission. From there he went to Tel Aviv in 1958 where he opened the Ghana Embassy in Israel. While there, he met George Padmore, the distinguished Pan-Africanist from Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s office and they discussed issues relating to politics and foreign policy. When Padmore returned to Ghana, he recommended KB to Dr. Kwame Nkrumah as someone who could help with Ghana’s African policies.


As a result, K.B. Asante was invited back to Ghana in 1959 and met Dr. Kwame Nkrumah for the first time. He was sent to the African Department at the Foreign Ministry to work on the Africanisation agenda. He eventually found himself in the President’s Office in 1960, and on the formation of the African Affairs Secretariat, KB became its Principal Secretary.

Three weeks before the February 28, 1966 coup d’état which overthrew Dr. Nkrumah, KB travelled to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia on a special mission. He was there when the coup took place, and so accepted the position of Head of Administration of the OAU and helped the Secretary General, Diallo Telli, administer the organisation. When the dust from the coup had settled somewhat, the Military Government appointed KB Ambassador to Switzerland with concurrent accreditation to Austria, the United Nations and the Atomic Energy Agency.

In Geneva, KB was elected President of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1968 and 1969, and President of the UN Narcotics Conference which drafted the present Narcotics Convention in 1970. He also led the Ghana delegations which eventually successfully negotiated an International Cocoa Agreement which had been in the pipeline for 18 years. In Vienna, he was elected President of UNIDO in 1970 while he looked after Ghana’s interests in the fields of Atomic Energy and OPEC. He also led the Ghana Delegation to the First Conference on the Environment in Stockholm in 1970.

KB left Switzerland in 1972 and was briefly Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he was heavily involved in negotiations leading to the Lome Convention. To his surprise, General Acheampong, who he had never met, asked him to move to the Ministry of Trade to help implement the import license regime in the difficult times that arose from Ghana’s refusal to pay debts incurred by previous regimes (yentua). Unsurprisingly some feathers were ruffled, and he was sent to Brussels as Ghana’s Ambassador to Belgium, Luxemburg and the European Economic Community. He was also chairman of the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP group in Brussels), and led the negotiations with the European Community on many technical issues with political implications.

The Politician

He left Brussels and retired early in 1978 to form the Social Democratic Front (SDF). With an office in the TUC, he mobilised workers and the youth. KB retired from the civil service in 1978, and formed the Social Democratic Party to compete the 1979 general elections. The party was not successful in winning the general elections, and though KB himself who stood for a Parliamentary seat did not perform well, the party won three parliamentary seats in the elections.

After the 1981 coup d’état (or “revolution”), KB was appointed Secretary for Trade and Tourism. In those turbulent years, the “gang of four”, that included KB and former President Kuffuor, were not seen as being sufficiently in tune with the Revolution. Unsurprisingly therefore, they were soon reshuffled out of government. In those troubled times, not even Judges were safe, and it was therefore deemed prudent for KB to go on self-imposed exile outside the country –lest his candid posture got him into further trouble.

When he returned to Ghana, after the volatile 1983 period, he was again asked to join the government – this time as Secretary of Education and Culture from 1986 to 1990. There was significant disquiet at home at this development, but KB’s determination to not just criticise from the side-lines compelled him to agree to serve the country as requested. KB spoke his mind, and was bold in his actions when he thought it necessary – often at the cost of his own comfort and well-being, and so his time in Government was difficult. Many of his friends and family questioned the wisdom of his association with the PNDC, and many in the PNDC distrusted his motives.


In his desire to serve his country however, he pressed on regardless – even when it seemed his efforts were futile. Perhaps to keep him out of trouble or to compensate him for his unceremonious dismissals, he was appointed High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in 1990. His 1990, appointment to the Court of St James in London was his last full time government position. He retired from active service in 1992.


The Social Commentator

KB came into his own when he gave up paid employment. He became what was probably the busiest unemployed graduate in Ghana.

KB was best known for his column in the Daily Graphic named “Voice from Afar”, but he was a resource person for almost every radio and TV station in Ghana. He even made a foray into the media fraternity by hosting a programme entitled “Time with K. B. Asante” on XYZ FM in Accra. His characteristic blunt and forthright speech was always sought by the media who were looking for catchy headlines and soundbites. He was often however frustrated that the conversations did not lead to significant change in attitudes or behaviour.

Social and Charitable

KB played his part well beyond formal employment. As Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Ghana Institute of Journalism he was instrumental in getting GIJ upgraded into a tertiary degree-awarding institution.

He was also Chairman of the Board of Achimota School, from xxx to xxx. KB was the founding Chairman of the La Community Bank, and played a key role in the development of La through La Mansaamo Kpee, the local development association of La.

KB was the founding president and life patron of the GaDangme Council, and his tireless work promoting the interests of the GaDangme people and seeking to preserve and recover GaDangme lands are well known.


KB as a child, used to accompany his grandmother to the Methodist Church where he was a chorister, but he later joined the Anglican Church because that was where he was baptised. He became a key figure in the Anglican Church, and served on the Parochial Church Council of All Saints Anglican Church. He was also very active away from the limelight, a regular and diligent visitor to the homes of friends and family in times of illness and bereavement. He was made Life Time Noble Patron of the Pan African Writers Association (PAWA).

Eulogy

Truly Ghanaian! Neither Ga, Kwahu, Ewe nor Grunshie, but a fusion of all four.

A Son of Achimota - embodied the spirit of Achimota. He gave his all for his country and his people. ‘Living water to a thirsty land’

We celebrate a modern hero of Ghana, and the best way to celebrate him is to seek to emulate his virtues and learn from his mistakes. In his own words: “I am proud of the achievements of my generation. But I am also conscious of the great errors we committed and failures to fully grasp opportunities. Our shortcomings should enable the young and future generations to do far better and create the prosperous Ghana which the nation deserves.”

Now praise we great and famous men….