Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah is Ghana's Presidential Special Envoy for Reparations. In an interview with Segun Kasali, he reflects on growing up in Ghana, his family's strong educational heritage, the influence of his disciplinarian father, and the experiences that helped shape his eventual career in public service and politics.
How would you describe your growing up?
I was born into a family of educationists. My father was, at the time I was born, a headmaster of a secondary school in Ghana that was yet to be built. It was a completely bushy piece of land, covering many acres.
I am sure you will be surprised to hear this, but it was an interesting experiment introduced by our first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah. In the early 1950s, when Nkrumah became Leader of Government Business after winning an election and forming the first Legislative Assembly with Africans in it, one of his ideas for accelerating educational development in Ghana was to invite assistant headmasters from prominent schools in the Gold Coast.
Although they were not yet headmasters, they were offered immediate appointments, with all the conditions of service, but without any physical school to manage. They were expected to establish and build the schools from scratch. My father was one of them.
He had taught at a prominent school called Achimota School in Accra, which is well known in Nigeria. I think King's College used to have joint sports festivals with Achimota in the 1960s and 1970s. My father had been teaching there since the 1930s. That was the kind of background I grew up in.
How would you characterise your father?
He was a disciplinarian, but not in the sense of excessive corporal punishment. He was a very firm person who believed in discipline, seriousness, nationalism, patriotism, honesty and integrity.
That was also partly influenced by Nkrumah, his Africanism and Pan-Africanism. That was why my father was sent to such a bush area to help 'civilise' the place in his own way and bring knowledge to the neighbourhood.
Growing up as a headmaster's son, what special treatment or privileges did you enjoy?
I would say there was no special treatment in the sense of favouritism from my father. He treated me like everybody else.
However, there was something a teacher did that made a significant difference in my life. According to my mother, a position my father also confirms, when it was time for my elder sister to start school at the age of six, I was only four.
In those days, a child had to cross an arm over the head to touch the opposite ear to prove that he or she was old enough to start school. My sister was six, and I was four. She was my only playmate, so when she started school, I cried all day because I thought I would be left alone.
My father eventually went to beg a teacher in a primary school, despite being a secondary school headmaster, to allow me to sit in a corner of the classroom so that I would stop crying.
The teacher agreed, and I stopped crying. Somehow, after that, I began to enjoy the lessons and understand what was being taught. Eventually, I remained in the same class as my sister until she graduated and was ready to take what was then called the Common Entrance Examination, which most children sat at the age of 11 or 12. I eventually took mine at nine.
My grandfather had also been a teacher. He rose to become what was then known as Inspector of Schools in the old Gold Coast. That was the title the colonial authorities gave in the 1920s and 1930s to the most senior African officers in various civil service positions, such as Inspector of Police, Inspector of Transport, Inspector of Health and Inspector of Schools.
My grandfather was Joseph Garbrah. This was during the administration of Governor Guggisberg, who had served in Nigeria before becoming Governor of the Gold Coast in the 1920s. He built Achimota School, the famous Korle-Bu Hospital, the biggest hotel in Ghana at the time and began developing the Port of Tema. Guggisberg is still very well remembered.
Starting school at four, when most children began at six, and being able to cope, would one be right to describe you as brilliant from childhood?
I think some people would prefer to use the word 'precocious'. I was ahead of my time in most cases. I was usually three to four years younger than my classmates.
As a child, what was your ambition? What did you want to become?
I do not think I had any particular ambition, and I cannot remember my father instilling any specific ambition in me.
However, I knew my father was a teacher, his father was a teacher, and my mother had also been a teacher before becoming a midwife and nurse.
My father eventually became the first African Deputy Director of the Ghana Broadcasting System. At independence in 1957, the broadcasting system was Africanised. There was a white man, David Miller, who was the Director, while my father became his deputy in 1958.
That meant he had to leave the small town where he had already established the secondary school and developed it to a certain level.
What did he instil in you regarding your career?
My father and I never discussed my career plans. He never asked whether I wanted to become a journalist, doctor, lawyer or diplomat.
However, simply by observing him and understanding my family history, I eventually followed many of the paths he had taken.
For instance, he was a teacher, and I also taught for one year in a secondary school in Ghana. That was because, in 1973, when General Acheampong staged a coup d'état and overthrew the government of Kofi Busia, Ghanaian students demonstrated in support of the coup and also insisted that we undertake national service.
National service was supposed to involve at least six months of military training and another six months of voluntary service.
What did you eventually study at the university?
My first subject was English and Literature.
Why?
That was the subject I felt I was good at in those days.
I was usually the first or among the first in my class. That was actually something my father instilled in me.
I remember that after examinations, he would usually ask how I had performed. I would say I did well, and he would then ask about my position. Was I first or second? If I was neither, that was where the problem was.
It was much later that I discovered that the school my father attended, Adisadel College in Ghana, had a motto: Vel Primus Vel Cum Primis, meaning 'Either first or among the first'.
I eventually graduated from the University of Ghana.
What were your university days like?
The University of Ghana, if you know it, has some of the best architecture among universities in Ghana. It is a physically beautiful institution, built by the colonial authorities, and those architectural features remain memorable to me.
I was also admitted into the most popular hall, Commonwealth Hall, which was built in 1957, the year Ghana gained independence.
If you get into Commonwealth Hall, you are regarded as being among the decision-makers, even academically. Its members are regarded as performers. We enjoyed certain privileges, including access to female hostels.
The nickname of the hall is Vandals City. The word 'Vandal' is not used in the negative sense.
How did you get into politics?
I did not get into politics immediately. I had been a student politician.
What do you think singled you out for the President to appoint you as his Senior Adviser?
I think only the President can answer that question. Interestingly, I have never asked him why he singled me out for the position.
However, the fact remains that I was qualified for the job, although there were many other qualified people who could also have done it.
What do you know about the President that people may not know?
He is much the same person everyone knows him to be. He is fairly calm and not inclined to do extreme things or misbehave. He is focused and sincere.
I think what you see is what you get. He does not show off, and he does not lie. He tries to help his country. As far as I am concerned, he is a fairly simple person.
What would you love to be remembered for?
I would like to be remembered as the man who tried to build on Nkrumah's legacy.