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New Job for Ghana's Former President
Related to country: Ghana

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Ghana's former president John Agyekum Kufuor has been named a Global Ambassador Against Hunger for the UN's World Food Program.Great Job!So,even after stepping down as president for the best country in Africa,there would have still been another job awaiting Mr. Kufuor.

President Kufuor's role,according to WFP's Executive Director,will be to focus on the need to provide good nutrition for the sixty-six million children who daily go to school hungry.

"Ensuring that every child has proper nutrition has to be the goal of every world leader," said president Kufuor after his appointment on July 20th. "I intend to inspire them all to strive for this goal."

I was very delighted when I got this news from the United Nations News Service yesterday.Why was I so delighted for my "former" president?Well,there is no great reason to be elated about his appointment except for the fact that he has been my " former" president in Ghana( I lived there for six years).

Mr. Kufuor won the elections in Ghana in 2000 when I had just arrived in that country and began living at the refugee camp known as Buduburam.Some people sometimes erroneously call it Bujumbura, mistaking it for the capital city and main port city of the Republic of Burundi, a country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa.

When president Kufuor won the Ghanaian presidential election,there was a kind of uneasiness among Liberian refugees because Kufuor's political party's acronym was similar to Charles Taylor's party that won presidential election in 1997 in Liberia.

Kufuor's New Patriotic Party(NPP) was somehow wrongfully associated with Taylor's National Patriotic Party(NPP),such that many Liberian refugees thought the two presidents had some kind of "connections" or philosophies.

Therefore,unlike the NDC-led government of Jerry John Rawlings,Liberians did not have much liking for the NPP-led government of Kufuor.

In fact, some Liberians in Ghana at the time blamed Kufuor,South African president Thabo Mbeki,Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, and Burkina Fasoa's Blaise Campaore for refusing to arrest Charles Taylor when a Special Court for Sierra Leone issued an arrest warrant for him on June 4th,2003 while attending peace talks with Liberian rebel groups in Accra,Ghana.

Besides,many Liberians feel and think that the NDC-led government better handled refugee issues than did the NPP-led government.

But as an individual who also was a refugee and a journalist,there were more to critically think about than easily agree with what others were saying about the NPP.

Yes,there were more dramatic displays between Liberian refugees during the Kufuor administration than there were during the Rawlings administration.

However, it was during the Kufuor administration that Liberians finally saw peace.And I bet president Kufuor might have played a pivotal role in ensuring that Liberians return to a peaceful settlement.

But president Kufuor was appointed WFP ambassador not because of what I have just explained, but because,as in the words of WFP Director Sheeran,Ghana has been a leader in nourishing its children.

And Director Sheeran added that Mr. Kufuor not only talks the talk,but he walks the walk, and he can be a leader in getting other leaders to follow his good example.I hope our leaders will listen to Mr. Kufuor and help put food on the table for Liberian school kids who daily go to school hungry.

Ghana has koko yams,corns,rice and a variety of food that their school children eat before and even after going to school.Things may not also be easy on Ghanaian school-going children.However, their government and farmers do a great deal to help with hungry.

In Liberia, we have fertile and rich soil but most of what we produce is rice, and so no matter what you give Liberian kids to eat,if they do not eat rice,they have not eaten anything at all.Can our government encourage and support our farmers get involved in the production of multiple food-crops?

I wish those words could be said about any former Liberian leader.But the last time I checked,I found that Liberia does not even have a former elected leader who is alive today aside from Charles Taylor whose fate is in limbo in Europe.

Some Liberians may argue that Liberia has former presidents like Dr. Amos Sawyer,Bismarck Kuyon,Philip Banks,David Kpormakor,Wilton Sankawulo,Ruth Perry,and Charles Gyude Bryant.But those were not elected;they were interim leaders.

And what about Moses Blah, Some may ask? He was not elected either.He only completed Mr. Taylor's term from August to October 2003.

So, in Liberia's longest historic journey of being the first independent nation-state in Africa to electing the first female head of state,we can not account for any of our past presidents.

We have either been killing or eating them.Oh yeah,we eat our presidents.Ask Prince Johnson where the late Samuel Doe's body parts are.He will be the best person to tell you, and yet Liberians elected him honorable man to make laws.Any yet we keep bragging about making history.Oh yeah! That's history,too-the eating or killing of our past presidents.

Therefore,there is no way such a statement attributed to Ghana's former president,Kufuor can be attributed to any of our former presidents. Not yet.

Maybe we would be able to say that of our Iron lady if we don't kill or eat her,too.

But Kufuor is not the first and only former leader that will be serving a role of such nature.His predecessor,Mr.Rawlings, was a joint recipient of World Hunger Award in 1993.
Ghana may also have some of their presidents dead,but they still have two former ones living now that we know of.Can we show one that is living besides controversial Taylor?
I betcha!

August 11, 2009 | 5:39 PM Comments  0 comments

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