Monday, October 15, 2018

A meeting with Kofi Annan- my tribute to Busumuru- a great man indeed



In the early 2000s, I was unfortunate enough to be an illegal immigrant in Obimanso (loosely translated as ‘overseas’). I had just finished my first Degree in Agricultural Science and instead of looking for a farm to practice my profession, was busy exploring life options on the shores of the United Kingdom- London, to be precise. During those times, the common call to fame to get into a well-paid job, mostly as a cleaner, was to introduce yourself as ‘Hello, my name is so-and-so, I come from Ghana, just like Kofi Annan’. And you were always welcomed with a smile and if you were lucky enough, a 2-hour-a-day stint cleaning toilets in one office complex or another.

Later on, I had the unique and unforgettable opportunity to meet this man when I was Mo Ibrahim Fellow working with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). Kofi Annan had come to Addis for a two-day visit to meet with some high level persons. This had not been shared with the media so the meeting was quite hush-hush.

My Boss, the then UNECA Executive Secretary, Carlos Lopes, had worked with Kofi Annan for many years when Kofi Annan was Secretary General of the UN. Carlos had been Kofi’s head of the Political Unit. Between the two of them, they grappled with a lot of the global issues at that time such as the Iraqi war, the Rwandan Genocide and some genocide that was taking place somewhere in the European Union. Carlos Adored Kofi Annan. Indeed, Kofi ranked very highly next to the other mentors that Carlos had, such as Cabral, Adebayo Adedeji and Samir Amin.

Whenever I had to do research to feed into any of the speeches or documentation that Carlos required, I knew the persons whose works I had to research, and that a quote from Kofi Annan will always make the cut. Secretly, I believe that was because Carlos himself might have contributed to the writing up of some of those speeches.

Outside the work environment, Carlos and Kofi remained friends and always kept in touch. From time to time, Carlos will regale his staff and assistants (myself included) with wonderful stories of how he and Kofi worked under pressure and how much he (Carlos) had learnt at as a close Aide to Kofi.

So if Kofi Annan is in Addis for a hush-hush meeting with who-and-who on what-and-what for something-and-the other, I knew that my Boss, Carlos will most definitely be called upon to sit in the meeting-that-did-not-take-place-because-Kofi-Annan-was-never-here or have lunch or dinner with him. And I so knew this was my opportunity to meet with Mr. Annan. I knew this would be one of the very few opportunities I would have for a one-on-one meeting.

So early in the morning, I positioned myself right next to Carlos’ office, waiting for him to arrive. I informed Mestawet, Carlos’ able secretary that she should let me know when ‘Sir’, as we called him, arrived as I had very important business to speak to him about.

When Carlos came into the office, I allowed him the requisite 5 minutes to enter his office and settle down and then I barged in with my request.

‘Good morning, Sir’, I said respectfully, ‘we were going through your agenda and meetings for the day this morning and wanted to check with you on this-so and so- information’. I started. We discussed a few of the research I have had to do for him and he provided critical and useful advice on how to improve on my work. But I am not sure I was listening hard enough. I was waiting for the right opportunity to make my request.

At the end of the meeting, I thanked ‘Sir’ and prepared to leave. He had not mentioned that he was meeting Kofi Annan later on in the day at a 5-star hotel in Addis.
‘wow!’ I thought to myself, ‘this must be a really high level and secretive meeting’. How do I get in? I wondered?

So I decided to bite the bullet.

‘Sir; I said ‘I notice from your calendar that you have a 1 o’clock meeting with Kofi Annan, would you require any support because I would like to meet with him’.  I asked meekly and straight to the point.

Carlos looked at me and chuckled.

‘Rebecca’, he responded, ‘that is possible, but I will not require note taking support during this meeting as it would mostly be informal. He noticed my crestfallen face and quickly concluded, ‘ I will speak to Kofi so that you can meet with him later, after I have met with him. Get ready to come to the hotel at 2 pm. My meeting with Kofi starts from 1pm to 2 pm so you can meet with him immediately after. Come to suite number so and so’

‘Thank you Sir’, I responded gratefully. 

I am not sure I was able to concentrate on much between the 9am meeting I had with Carlos and the time I left for the meeting. Was I wearing the right colour suit? What questions would I ask him? How will I begin the conversation? I pondered and fretted all through the morning.

Due to the high security around this particular hotel, the taxi I had picked to drop me there refused to go near the hotel, so I had to get down at the junction, about a mile from the hotel gates. I had to walk in the mid-morning Addis Ababa sun to the hotel. Addis is not as hot as Accra, but walking a mile wearing trouser suit and heels is not a comfortable venture. When I finally arrived at the hotel entrance. I was sweating.

‘Thank God I came early,’ I said to myself, ‘at least I will get to rest before I meet with my hero.’

Kofi Annan was not my hero for anything he had done but for improving the visibility of the Ghanaian and staying true to his roots. I remember walking the streets of France a long time ago and hearing a voice on one of the numerous TVs that line the high street shops. I immediately knew the voice was Ghanaian and when I turned to watch, Kofi Annan was on TV. This was one thing I admired about him, the fact that he never tried to hide his accent regardless of the many years he had spent within the UN.

I got to the hotel at about 1.30 pm and when immediately to the suite where my boss was meeting with Kofi. The hotel receptionists themselves were not aware of who was in the particular suite I had been informed to report to. No problem, I know my way around this particular hotel as it is a common place for UN Staff to stay. I will find it. In my rush to come, I had with me only my handbag and a mobile phone. I felt unprepared. What question was I going to ask him/ how do I ensure I sound intelligent?

So, basically, I had implemented the core of Matthew 7:7- ask and you shall receive- and been granted my request to meet with Kofi Annan whilst he in Addis Ababa for a hush-hush meeting and I was unprepared to sound intelligent.

I realised that I had some time before meeting with Kofi Annan so I could use that time well and do some research on google on my mobile. 

Surprisingly, as with the custom for high-level persons who visit Addis, there were no security guards at the entrance of his hotel room. Only my Boss’ personal body guard was standing outside the door.

‘Hello Dereje (not his name)’, we greeted amicably. I am sure you are asking why I disclosed the name of Carlos’ secretary but not his personal body guard. Well, such is life. Let’s get on with the story

‘Sir didn’t inform me that you were supposed to be in this meeting, ‘he said, sounding confused, ‘I would have informed you when we were leaving the office, do you want to join the meeting now?’ He asked.

No, I am meeting with him separately after Carlos.’ I answered cheerfully.

‘ok, then, let’s wait together’. He said.

So we sat outside the hotel room door in the corridor.

Waiting has never been a favourite of mine. I tend to fidget a lot. Especially as in this instance, the corridor was long and empty. This meant that anyone who passed by would wonder why you were standing in front of a door.

Dereje, as a personal body guard to Carlos, was used to waiting. He could stand for hours in an at-ease military position, scanning the two ends of the corridor. He was my first example to experience the work of personal body guards. Good at his job, as he was quiet, stealth, efficient and deadly…with his pistol always discreetly hidden.

We waited. And waited and then waited some more.

Finally, around 2.45 pm, the door opens to Kofi’s suit and the two friends come out smiling and laughing together.

‘oh! Rebecca, you are here!’, ‘my boss said. Turning to Kofi Annan, he said,’ this is the lady I was telling you about.’ And introduced me to Kofi Annan. I goofily shook his hand. Kofi welcomed me warmly with his characteristic wide smile and his eyes looked deeply into my soul.

As my Boss and Dereje left the hotel, I went to see them off. Kofi had requested some time before he was able to see me. No problem for me. I returned to the doorway and became an unofficial sentry on duty, standing behind the door waiting for my turn to meet with this icon of peace.

After about 10 minutes of waiting, I became quite concerned. I was sure there was no one in the room with Kofi. That he was there alone. So it wasn’t as if he was in another meeting. Since I was standing outside the only door to the room, I would have noticed if someone else had entered. So why was he not coming out to meet me?

Anyway, he is a very busy man so I am sure he may be responding to some urgent emails or something. So I waited another 10 or so minutes. Still silence in the room beyond. Then I began to think about the folly of my situation.

‘woman’. I told myself,’ why are you here alone? Why do you go to meet with a man alone in a hotel room?’. so many things are very inappropriate with this setting you yourself have provided.’. I began to worry about any possible consequences of this situation. I started to think through any self defence mechanisms that may be available to me. Maybe biting or kicking as screaming will not work; the entire hotel room floor seems to have been deserted, not even the hotel cleaners were on the floor.

‘what situation is this that I have put myself into?’. Should something untoward happen, how will I explain myself when I had specifically requested for this meeting, left my office to come all the way to this place, and been seen by a few people standing outside the door waiting to enter’.

So what should I do now? I asked myself. Should I abandon meeting with the person I have admired and followed all these years because of a slight, very slight possibility of potential unruly behaviour, which to all intents and purposes may be the objects of imaginations of my own very dirty mind? What sort of blasphemy and sacrilege was this?  Or should I wait to have this one in a million opportunity and be bold and have a good discussion with the man of the millennium.

As I pondered over my options, I more and more saw the ludicrousness of my thoughts. This is a man who has led the entire United Nations’ for 10 whole years. Had won the Nobel peace prize and gone ahead to do many many good things. He had mentored my Boss Carlos and many other high level individuals.

‘shut your naughty thoughts, you bad mind’. I said to myself. I will wait.

So I waited some more.

Walking back and forth cross the carpeted floor of the six floor hotel building. An ideal definition of the word 'perambulating- walking for no specific objective'. 

Why is this man making me wait? Perhaps he is asleep, I thought to myself. After all, he is an old man, past his pension age and will need his regular beauty sleep. Ah, but if he is going to sleep, he should inform me to leave? How can he just forget about me? I spoke to myself indignantly. Maybe this is the way he deals with people he does not want to see, bore them to death by waiting so that they will leave of their own accord. Hmpfh!!

Maybe I should just leave. That will show him, the old man! How can he keep me waiting this long? Doesn’t he know that I am a busy person with work to do? That I am a Mo Ibrahim Fellow and have places to go to? I had then been waiting for almost an hour since Carlos left at 2.45 by which time I had already been waiting for about an hour. My feet were killing me. 

What should I do now? How do I proceed from here? As I paced some more in front of the door.   In my anger and frustration, I knocked loudly on the door and in that instance asked myself why I hadn’t thought about that option 10 or 20 or 30 minutes ago?

So the answer had always just been right here with me. Applying the Tony Dogbe principle of Matthew 7:7. …knock and the door will be opened to you…

 In my frustration, I think I knocked a tad bit too loudly. The sound itself startled me. ‘well, serves him right for making me wait’, I said to myself.

After a few seconds the door opened.
hello’, said Kofi, ‘sorry to keep you waiting. I was working on a draft document. Come in’.  

Infact, to tell you the truth, I think he had totally forgotten about me and was taking a nap.

I walked into a decent sized hotel room, noting that this was a suite with a parlour, or what we call chamber and hall. So the open space had chairs and tables with an inner room.

He invited me to sit down. I sat. and all my intelligent questions went straight out of my head. In retrospect, it felt a bit like playing the video game called ‘Mario’. When you have gone through umpteen stages killing mushrooms and turtles by jumping on them and throwing fireballs, sometimes losing your life in the process (thankfully video games give you three chances to win) and sometimes gaining more lives. You then arrive at the stage where you have to battle the dragon, so that you can save the Princess, only to realise that you are on your final life and all your arsenal is finished. A humbling experience.

So I introduced myself in my most Ghanaian dialect and informed him that I was happy to have met him. The meeting lasted for about 10 minutes. I cannot tell you what we spoke about as I would then have to kill you. But he was insightful, witty and very kind. He gave me some good advice that I still use in my work. He spoke to me as a person and not as a nuisance, though that was what I was. Overall, a thoroughly memorable experience.

As I prepared to leave, I requested for one little favour. I would like to take a picture with him. He readily agreed. But how were we going to take a photo as it was just the two of us in the room? He was also getting ready for another meeting and could not go with me to the hotel lobby. Problem solved, that is why the reverse camera exists.
This was in 2013 when ‘selfie’ was not yet a common word, at least not in the circles in which Kofi and I operated.

I immediately whipped out my iPhone 2 and reversed the camera to take the picture.
‘oh’ he said’ give me a moment to put on a jacket. He went into the inner room and emerged with a dark blazer over his casual white shirt. Sir, I said, maybe you can comb your hair a wee bit as well? He laughed and went back inside to comb his hair.

Click click. I went with my reverse camera. Kofi making sure his good side was captured in the photos.

I realised that as a public personality, he had to look composed and well-dressed at all times.

We agreed which ones to use.

I said my farewells and left.

I don’t remember how I got into my office. I don’t remember how I left the hotel, which taxi I picked, who I saw and what I did. Cloud 9 really existed for me then. I had just had the most intense experience of my life and there was no one to share it with, at least no one who will understand that feeling well enough.

I remember getting into my office and seated at my desk.

As Kofi is laid to rest, I remember him as an icon for peace but also as someone who has inspired the persons who mentored me. His life and good will give testimony to his contribution to mankind.

The world has lost a great person. But we will remember your good deeds. My thoughts go out to your lovely wife and your children and wish them well in these trying times.

My further thought goes out to my boss and mentor Carlos, whose picture taken at Kofi Annan’s funeral depicts the extent of his loss. Sir may God give you strength as well in these trying times. We know you will continue to carry the ideas of Kofi Annan as your work as the AU representative to the Europe and in all your other roles…as well as a Board member of the Kofi Annan Foundation.

God bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong

Damirifa Due, Busumuru Kofi Annan. You came to serve. As a servant of the people and made your mark. A mark that will last forever.

May you rest in perfect peace.

Share with me any experience you may have with meeting Mr. Annan by leaving a comment in this blog or at teikosabah@gmail.com.

About the Author:
Teiko Sabah blogs about Pan Africanism at  Claim No Easy Victories