The year was 1983 or thereabout. The venue was the Cocoa Affairs Court
Complex. Time check circa 100hrs. I was fully robed as a lawyer, rushing between courts, very busy.
Then this young looking diminutive bespectacled young man stopped me in my tracks – “Captain, I need your help I stood surety for somebody and he has jumped bail. The police have brought me here for forfeiture of bail recognizance please, Captain, help me.”
“Very well Give me one thousand cedis.”
“Captain I don’t have money. I am a journalist…just help me, Captain.”
There was this extraordinary quiet confidence that exuded from his personality and I just liked his straightforward frankness. I helped him out, and he was all gratitude to me.
I never saw him or heard from him again for over one full year, when, again, at Cocoa Affairs I saw him, desperate – “Captain the police have brought m here again, for bailing somebody. I screamed at him – “are you a bail contractor?’
“No, Captain – never, but what can I do if a very close personal friend is in a problem …. how can I abandon him?
I gave him a lecture on bails generally, “Look here, Nana, human nature being what it is, never sign bail for anybody, I mean ANYBODY, apart from your mother and your wife.
From that day onwards, Nana was never again accosted by the Police for surety issues.
Slowly he warmed his way into my life and became one of my closest friends in life. He got to know my father in-law’s daughter and each of my four children, coming regularly to the house, office and wherever, travelling together up and down the countryside in my numerous political engagements outside Accra.
Nana Owusu Boamah was a gentleman by all standards, but more than that his very nature was made up of helping people and showing love and concern to others. He seemed to be the rock in his family around which everybody revolved, more often than not travelling at short notice to Beposo, Nsuta, Dadiaso, Mampong, Offino and of course Kumasi, to attend the funeral of this sister, that cousin, my mother’s this, my father’s that.. … oh, Nana Owusu Boamah, ever so restless, always on the move.
He knows almost every detail about Ashanti history and could rattle the history of all past Asantehene at his fingertips. He himself was a Royal in Offinso, and he used to tell me that he is next in line to become the next Offinsohene.
One fascinating thing about him was his gift by God to know literally every police IGP in Ghana – by name. Anytime there is a personality change in IGP I will ask him and he will tell me “Oh, Captain, this man, IGP – he is my man.”
When President Kufuor appointed Nana Owusu Nsiah from my area Berekum as IGP, Nana called me on phone and said “Captain, my uncle has been made IGP!!!!
When Nana Akuf-Addo made David Asante Apietu the IGP, one of the first acts of the ‘new IGP was to drive to the house of Nana Owusu Boamah one Saturday morning to tell him to wear a cloth and follow him to a funeral in Central Region.
When Oppong Boanuh from Dormaa became the IGP I asked him – Nana, as for Oppong Boanuh I am sure you don’t know him
He laughed uncontrollably, saying ….. “Captain, when J. Y. Kwofie was IGP, Oppong Boamuh was his ADC, and anytime I went to the IGP’s office, the ADC will serve us tea and biscuits.
I confess that even though I am a practicing lawyer anytime a new client comes with a complicated police case, I will call Nana Boamah on phone and he will tell me “oh Captain do you mean the Police Divisional Commander at Nima? Or the Western Regional Police Commander you name him, Nana knows ALL of them!!!
One day I got home late in the evening and my son, then a law student told me “Dada, that your friend, the one who comes and talks plenty of Akan. He picked a bucket of water to go to the bathroom in the compound house at Darkuman – suddenly he collapsed, was rushed to hospital, but it was recorded as “Brought in Dead” just like that.
His funeral in Beposo on 2nd October will be more of a reunion of former IGPs. I have no doubt that Nana Boamah must have known Dr. Dampore the current IGP.
Walk softly home, Nana. May God receive you in His bossom.
By Nkrabeah Effah Dartey