Reconciling Death

“My goal is Simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” – Stephen Hawking

Last week Friday had come promising to be commemorative as I was preparing to travel to Peki Adzokoe. I took goofy face pictures and as the age require, I updated my status, thanking God for a good week. I was particular grateful for the progress Africa Learn was making and it’s VFund to help grow great ideas.

I head an Operational Risk Department for a strong and resilient bank, a new career path that had been inspired by the man for whom I was going to Peki. Clement Agbo was the Head of Operational Risk at UT Bank when I was an Enterprise Risk Analyst, I was pioneering Risk Analytics, Credit Risk Modelling and Portfolio Reporting at UT Bank and was known for my own mastery.

Clement had however inspired me to see what was possible with an opportunity in Operational Risk considering my diverse experience across various departments in the bank and my passion for data, systems, process and people. He had died at the age of 48 years, a death that had broken all our heart and only heightened my understanding of the consequences of the collapse of the banks, death that had given me more focus in pursing the movement to teach how to build sustainable businesses in Africa and live the next generation examples of such enterprises.

Today, however, is not exactly about Clement and definitely not about me, it is about Emmanuel Boakye Yiadom. Please note that, this writing is purely therapeutic for me and so pardon the round tripping as you sit in my shrink sessions.

He was my family’s favorite Uncle as we all looked forward to him coming home. He seldom came home but the memories with him was some of my fondest growing up. He showed me what life could be beyond the small town of Duayaw Nkwanta. He always came home in his car even in the early 90s and I was sure to receive a gift whenever he came. My ‘closeness’ with him came from the fact that, he always slept at our house on my bed. He slept in my room and it was always nice to have him around. He was the one uncle who gave a child like me an ‘important’ relative to aspire to. We knew him to have a successful career in banking as he retired as a Chief Internal Auditor for a good bank.

Dad Boakye, as I always called him was hospitalized in Korle Bu Teaching hospital, my Dad had called me within the week to inform me he was at the hospital and encouraged me to go check on him. I had been somewhat a prodigal son who had taken the hustle personally, grinding and had not been around since I was told. I did not quiet think it was fatal and I was going to check on him anyway after my trip from Peki. My Dad was making a 7 hour trip to visit him that Saturday after which I will meet them when I returned from the funeral.

Strangely, I missed the bus to Peki and thus was left with one purpose for the Saturday, be a good boy and go spend some time with my uncle, the man I had lived with for my early months when I came to Accra in 2010. The man I had last heard from on December 7^th, 2018 when we both met home when we had gone to visit. Before last hearing of him, we had spoken last when I was lunching my book I think.

It is exactly one month since 2019 began and I must admit the year had been progressive thus far, the 31 days into the year and the hopes for the New Year did not include a vision of a gruesome death of a man I had grown to respect greatly. I will conclude with the story of his death but I can’t write without telling the lessons each time teach me:

1. The choice of a life partner will make or unmake you in life. As I reflect on his life in comparison with some people I know, I have concluded that perhaps, the simple act of marriage is the next most important event after birth. I am convinced your life partner will most likely determine the quality of life and legacy and so focus on that decision for the future and not the present. 
2. Investments in quality of relationships may perhaps enhance quality of life more than a career that ends. As I observed the events after his death, I am convinced good quality relationships perhaps mean more for impact and legacy.
3. Witchcraft may be real, but if even it is not, there are more unexplainable things in life for which faith in God is the only rational option to reconcile such inconsistencies and randomness. 

My uncle’s car we are told caught fire and as he sought to check the smoke he got burnt horribly from head to toe. The car that started the ‘fire’ did not burn neither was there any known explosion as we are told. The car was moved normally after the incident. Police investigators have only questions as much as we have. 

I have cried within the week and do now as I write this, I cry not because he died, I have reconciled the futility of humanity, but I cry because of the nature and manner of his death. He suffered the worst pain imaginable in his last 7 days, pain I can’t define or imagine anyone go through. Unexplained things have happened after his death but above all I will end with a quote from Stephen Hawking, a man who was known as a mind trapped in a vegetative body, “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the Universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don't just give up." 

A Culture in Need of a Fix

When I was growing up two things were symbolic of who I was, ‘too-known’ and ‘stubborn’, traits that needn’t be glorious but ones I pride in. I reminisce my childhood always with nostalgia; a feeling of joy that I was never broken irrespective of how hard it got but I get sad knowing how the culture robs us of the best.

Permit me to digress to tell a long tale, one that will aid our understanding of our culture. This story sets the stage for an important inquiry. Once upon a time, time-time. A man by name Philip Zimbardo decided to randomly assign volunteers to the roles of guards and prisoners in a test. Everybody knew this was not serious and was only a joke as each was a student of the prestigious Stanford University. I guess I must have entered the caveat, it is a true story.

Almost immediately after the experiment began, the “guards” started to behave in a dehumanizing way toward the “prisoners,” subjecting them to verbal harassment, forced exercise, manipulation of sleeping conditions, manipulation of bathroom privileges (some of it physically filthy), and the use of nudity to humiliate the “prisoners.” Zimbardo, who played the role of prison superintendent, terminated the experiment after only six days when it was intended to last for two weeks.

This research became an insightful understanding into human behavior, culture and leadership. It is rather curious and interesting that 1971 was the year of the research. That same year perhaps built the foundation of everything we know in modern culture. Intel released the first microprocessor, a technology which revolutionized computing, Walt Disney Opened in Florida, the voting age in the United States was lowered to 18 years old, NASA’s Appolo 14 mission to the Moon was launched, women were granted the right to vote in Switzerland and yes United Arab Emirates was established in the same year. Just as these events set the global stage for modern politics, power and culture Major General Idi Amin Dada took control of Uganda and that same 1971 happened to be the last year of Busia’s government and the end of the second republic of Ghana. 

Let me allow you at this point to reflect on the question, what is Ghanaian culture and how different is it from the culture of other civilized nations? As we all try to figure out answers to these questions these are my thoughts:

1.  Dada gets the meat and milk even if the child needs it most. I honestly don’t know why we call fathers Dada but maybe Dada Amin must make us reconsider. Getting pass the lightheartedness, why did we (or maybe just me) grow up when the best part of the meat and the greater part of milk served to the father when the science that children need that the most abounds. Why did we not ask the question so that we gave the children the best of the meat or the milk?
2.  A child can never be right and should not talk back when instructed. Why is wisdom always associated with age and the perspective of a child never listened to when it is obvious an old clown was born before the king. Why could adult never see the wisdom or at least the thirst of a child’s curiosity? 
3. Why is the 'white' man always esteemed better than the 'black' man? Why do we believe in the colour superiority and even call ourselves 'black' when the last time I checked the colour of our skin was nothing close to black, neither was white anything like the once we call white.  
4. Why do we fear books, reading and pens and actually why the proverb if you want to hide something from a man of colour, hide it in a book? Does learning make us vomit or does too much reading make us mad? Maybe like the biblical Paul we are too short to reach out for books on the shelves.  
5. Why do we believe everything we read? I am sure someone is saying that, so Paul couldn’t pick books from the shelf, wow. Really? Like seriously? Read and gullible are not mutually exclusive. 
6. Why was Akan drama more important than talking point, and who scheduled Akan drama to be televised right after talking point? Or is it just a GTV thing? Maybe more of the ‘G’ syndrome. After all who wants to talk with Gonorrhea? 
7. Why is the ghost always the hero of the story and not Ghana police? Sorry it’s only in the movies. I am still looking for who killed Nancy anyway. 
8. And aww, the new craze, why is the ‘juju man’ not rich or maybe just like the lotto doctor, he is a Good Samaritan that’s all.

Talking about lotto doctors and Good Samaritans, this article was inspired by John Ackah-Blay Meizah and his protégé, the amazing lotto doctors. You may elect to believe the 1000% or 120% per annum or both but why did we not ask the questions of why and how? Our culture needs a fix but I don’t find the solution complex, just curiosity, pure childlike curiosity – the ability to ask the right questions and to have clarity free from all heuristics. 

How do we get hoodwinked by ‘Dada’ and believe he has an aeroplane under his bed? Even if Anty Jackie and Bra Kwame said it was good, and the coolest babes- Dumas and Becca invited us with a wink, how shall we find our mind to decide for ourselves free from groupthink and pluralistic ignorance? Even when shatta, Bhim and Sark say ‘ratata’, how do we know the herb makes one think correctly? 

There is a serious conversation about our culture to be had, but for now let us have our usual laugh, just this time not the trolling at the pain but laugh with hope that just maybe, there will be an awakening of the values of hard work, diligence, curiosity, learning and rigorous independent thinking. Just maybe we need another 1971 that we may build new foundations rather than the authoritarianism of Dada. 

My Name is Yaw Sompa and I am your Learning Partner, It is an Africa Learn thingy… wink wink.