When one has to explain death to a child, the use of their doll to demonstrate the lifelessness of their object of play to typify mortality comes in handy. Death is how the earth makes its omelet. It is how moths get their bread and heaven receives its own. For us as christians, death is a gain. The Good Book is replete with assurances for the hereafter but those affirmations are not unconditional. The promises are predicated upon the conduct of our affairs in the ‘here’.
This piece simply recognizes a man who was instrumental in my early days of parliamentary reporting. John Tia was the ‘go to’ on the majority side for nearly every topic. Often, he pointed us to members of his side, imbued with knowledge on specific subjects and didn’t hesitate to offer reporters unsolicited lunch.
Becoming a deputy leader of his side after an election in which the NDC candidate fought against a hostile media, the party in government was suspicious of every journalist. And given that some of us had opposed views of their student members on campus, it was easy to be pigeonholed as opponents. You couldn’t be simply doing your job. But John Tia was above the fray, at least as far as my reporting in the national assembly was concerned.
He was willing to explain events in the chamber to reporters desirous to engage. He never shied from recognizing you, even in the midst of his colleagues. If you strayed into his office located to the right of the foyer and close to the mens room, while attending to colleagues, he would politely ask you to wait outside and get his staff to invite you the moment he was done. In fact, there were times when he had to excuse his colleagues because reporters had been waiting for a while to interview him on some of the controversies within his caucus, and there were many.
His attitude reflected favorably on his staff, most notably Sampson, who continued to be a good acquaintance long after Mr. Tia had left the precinct of Ghana’s parliament. Despite receiving raw disregard from some staff of minority leadership side at the time, John Tia, ET Mensah and Bagbin, seemed to welcome journalists in a fashion that demonstrated a resolve to engage positively with reporters, probably to ward off the negative press they continued to court, even after Mills beat Akufo-Addo in Tain and formed government.
I recall once after we set up for an interview in his office, a colleague, journalist and host of an evening show on English radio, popped into the office in his usual style. We had been fixing our equipment as Mr. Tia heartily converses with a fellow lawmaker, whose infamy was the result of a slap he dished out to a colleague on his side. In a popular Ghanaian dialect, Mr. Tia prayed to his colleague, whose constituency the current sports minister continues to battle him for, to leave with the journalist and ‘sort him out’ since he, Tia, could not reach into his pocket and offer the reporter cash, as we looked on.
It said a lot about both the lawmaker and the journalist. As far as Mr. Tia was concerned, we were not privy to that transaction. Unfortunately for him, I had picked up the language in Anaji Estate of all places, from my neighbors whose home I spent a considerable amount of time as a child and could speak their mother tongue fluently.
When my employers made the sale of digiboxes to MPs part of my relationship building with lawmakers, he introduced me to many colleagues including later speaker Doe Adjaho, who acquired the boxes, even though at the time, it was a novelty in our space. Through the Talensi lawmaker’s instrumentality, I built a solid repertoire of voices on nearly every issue not only on parliamentary issues but also on many national issues.
In 2017, when Mustapha Ussif’s main opponent heard me speak the language with a parliamentary staff, he paused for a moment and inquired whether I always spoke the language. I answered in the affirmative. His facial expression was one of betrayal. One cannot certainly say he recalled the moment when his caucus leader sent him out to ‘sort out’ a journalist who openly showed affinity towards their opponent. What was certain was that the Yagaba Kobore lawmaker did not think that it was possible for one to know something and remain in another’s confidence when the subject at issue had no implication for the common good.
As the longest serving lawmaker for Talensi meets his maker, one can only hope that his life on earth, including his public service, was at par with His maker’s expectations. I pray for the repose of his soul and hope others in public office as well as all and sundry will discharge our duties in a manner that not only prompts others to bid us farewell, when their individual die is cast but also that when the trumpet sounds we will find favor with the Lord.
Adios, John Tia Akologo!!
Demirefa due!!
Rest in Peace!!!
By Kobby Gomez-Mensah
The writer is a journalist and human rights professional.