It's good to be back home - Busumuru Annan

"It's good to be back at home" was Busumuru Dr Kofi Atta Annan's opening statement when he mounted the podium to deliver the first of the Golden Jubilee Lecture Series on: "Championing African Excellence".



It was his first speaking engagement since retiring after 40 years of service at the United Nations (UN), 10 of which he was the Secretary-General. "I intended to retire to a quiet and peaceful civilian life but when your President calls you to duty you can only say it's an honour Sir to be at your service", Busumuru Annan declared amidst a loud laughter from the audience, which included President John Agyekum Kufuor and his wife Theresa; Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama, Mr Begyina Sakyi-Huges, Speaker of Parliament; Members of the Council of State; Ministers of State, Members of Parliament (MPs), Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Traditional and Religious Leaders and people from all walks of life.




Busumuru Annan declared that he was proud to return home and to address Ghanaians not in his capacity as a world leader but as a private Ghanaian citizen, who left Ghana to join the UN at the time when Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah was still President of Ghana and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) was Kumasi College of Science and Technology (KCST). When he turned his attention to his lecture notes, he was straight to the point, punchy, fluent and brief.




Even though at the start the audience got the impression that the lecture was going to be long, Busumuru Annan delivered a brilliant and loaded lecture, which attracted a standing ovation at the end, in less than 30 minutes.

Mr Alban Sumani Bagbin, the Minority Leader in Parliament, said the lecture was a masterpiece delivered in the most excellent English that one could ever imagine.

"Although at the start of the lecture one got the impression that it was going to be long, it ended up being very brief but loaded and I hope everybody there understood everything he said." Mr Bagbin, however, complained about what he described as “selective invitation” the Government threw to members of the opposition to Ghana@50 programmes, and said Ghana@50 was not NPP@50 and that all political parties in Parliament needed to be invited to be part of the initiation, planning and implementation of programmes to give the celebrations a national character instead of one party character.

Mr George Opesika Aggudey, Convention People’s Party (CPP) Flag Bearer for Election 2004, described Busumuru Annan as a symbol of national unity, saying that all leaders of political parties needed to rally around him and his brilliant ideas to move the country forward. "Ghana is bigger than any political party and (Busumuru)Kofi Annan has just told us that in the simplest of languages - we need to put our differences aside and feed on his ideas for development," he said.

Dr Edward Mahama, Leader of the People’s National Convention (PNC), said Busumuru Annan was a calm and humble gentleman but firm in his convictions "and I believe that we can see another Kwame Nkrumah in (Busumuru) Kofi Annan - this should give us the hope that the spirit of Kwame Nkrumah lives on in sons of the nation like Kofi Annan and others".