The late Ambassador James Aggrey-Orleans in his Lodge regalia
Ghana’s celebrated diplomat Ambassador James Aggrey Orleans has passed on. He was 81 years old. He died early yesterday.
He was a lecturer at the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre, a Chief of State Protocol at one time and a Clerk of Parliament during the Limann regime.
The deceased also had the responsibility of training diplomats before they set off to their foreign duty posts.
His wife Agnes Aggrey-Orleans, like her husband, was also a diplomat – a coincidence which should have contributed to their successful service to the nation.
For a man who etched his pedigree in the annals of the country’s diplomacy, he continued to be of relevance to the shaping of the country’s maintenance with the rest of the world through the imparting of the delicate craft even in retirement.
In one of his recent public addresses, he reportedly said matters of diplomacy must be promoted to what he described as ‘diplomatic behaviour’ in every Ghanaian.
He said everybody in society must be considered an agent of diplomacy, which was a secret tool for successful relations among states, representation of identities as well as negotiations between states and institutions.
He was speaking on the topic: “The Fundamental Principle of Protocol and the Importance of Protocol in Inter-State, Inter-Corporate and Inter-Faith Relations” at the 2017 Protocol Matters Conference in Accra.
Even as he rendered this classic speech, little did he know at the time that his sojourn on the ephemeral world was drawing to an end.
By A.R. Gomda