Duffuor crowned Ultimate Man of the Year - says Ghana facing moral crisis
Dr Kwabena Duffuor, a former Minister of Finance, has been crowned the “Ultimate Man of the Year” at the 2017 edition of the Exclusive Man of the Year (EMY) Africa Awards ceremony last weekend in Accra with an appeal to all Ghanaians to rise up and intervene to resolve the challenges confronting Ghana.
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Immediately after receiving the award at the Kempinski Hotel last Saturday, he said: “I must confess that my heart is very troubled because I am receiving this award at a time when we Ghanaians are increasingly losing our identity and values. What we are witnessing in our country presently is a moral crisis, a wilful negligence in extremis”.
“Day after day we witness base behaviours in both low and high places-rampant mob killings, indiscipline on our roads and places of work, wanton destruction of our environment, corruption and mass looting of state resources.”
“Our current state is one of ‘Biblical scale transgression’. It reminds me of the Exodus account in which the entire Jewish nation abandoned Yahweh and decided to worship the golden calf,” Dr Duffuor, who is also the Group Chairman of the Hoda Group, said.
The event, the second in the series of the EMY Awards Africa, was organised by the Exclusive Men of the Year Awards as a Father’s day-related ceremony to celebrate distinguished men in diverse fields to inspire greatness in the younger generation.
The event
The EMY Awards Africa was rich in content but very poor in organisation as the event billed to start at 6pm with a red carpet reception to be followed by cocktail and the awards ceremony started about two hours afterwards.
The organisers did not offer any explanations for the delay and by the start of the awards ceremony at about 9.30pm, the guests who earlier were very hopeful of a good show looked frustrated. Following the hype of Freddie Meiway as the main artiste of the ceremony the previous day on selected radio stations, the awards ceremony was oversubscribed.
The event organisers were compelled to provide extra chairs for the guests who were not part of the seating arrangements while the ceremony was ongoing.
The poor arrangements resulted in the flagship award being conferred on Dr Duffuor at the time more than half of the guests had left - at about midnight.
Artiste and footballers do their acts before a capacity crowed but when Freddie Meiway was ushered onto the stage, there were barely less than 100 people in the auditorium.
The legend Freddie Meiway of the ‘Zoblazo’ fame was not deterred by the ‘thin’ audience and at one stage was joined by a number of people including Abeiku Santana who engaged in very provocative spectacles with the Meiway’s girls.
Place of selflessness
Dr Duffuor, who is also the President and Founder of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, expressed regret that the noble virtue of selfishness possessed by our forebears was missing in the country today.
“As they set about conquering lands for you and me, our forefathers’ major concern was to provide for the future generations and not for themselves. But now, one would struggle in vain to find evidence of selflessness in our behaviour whereas a few decades ago, we were known to be kind, patriotic, helpful and full of love towards one another,” he said.
According to Dr Duffuor, the county’s institutions were being destroyed because of self-interest, arguing that “sadly we forget that institutions rest on moral footings and that there is no force that can erode these foundations more rapidly than a cataract of self-interest”.
He said in spite of all these societal ills, he had great hope in the country saying “that is why I would wholeheartedly agree with the EMY Awards Africa organisers when they advise that we all rise up and intervene. I also agree with the organisers when they propose the intervention should involve mentoring young ones to become better people for the good of our society”.
Citizens with integrity
Dr Duffuor submitted that since ‘self-interest’ was the real canker undermining the very moral foundation of the society, “our mentoring of the young ones should aim at inculcating in them values of good virtue and godliness. The younger citizens should be moulded into becoming citizens with integrity so they would grow to become individuals who are truthful, trustworthy, dependable, loyal and not deceptive”.
“They would become individuals who keep their word and are honest and open in dealing with their fellows. And above all they would become God-fearing and public-spirited citizens,” he said.
Dr Duffuor added that the process of character moulding of our younger people should also be supported by intensive moral education through the introduction of religious education as a compulsory subject in our schools.
He said integrity and skills were characteristics of public-spirited leadership, and added that “it is an indispensable prerequisite for successful nation-building without which skills may be working in the dark”.
Dr Duffuor stated that he was sure that public-spirited leaders were what Ghana needed more, adding that “this is because a public-spirited leader will not abuse the system for personal gains because of godly attributes and values in him or her. In this way the deterioration in the moral fibre of our society shall be halted.
For this reason, he charged all the awardees to stand up and mentor a generation that acquired high integrity and skilful hands.
Some of the awards
Other award winners included Sir Sam Esson Jonah, Chairman of Jonah Capital (Pty) Limited who received the Lifetime Achievement Award; Mr Tony Elumelu, Founder and Chairman of Heirs Holdings Limited, was adjudged Man of the Year, Africa; former President J. A. Kufuor received the Statesman/Leadership Award, while Nii Kotei Dzani, President of Groupe Ideal and a member of the Council of State, was among three others who received the Special Recognition Awards.
The man of the Year, Governance Award, went to Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, Majority Leader, and Mr Alban Kingsford Sumani Bagbin, Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, while the Man of the Year, Expat, went to Mr Hayssam Fahry, Managing Director of Interplast Limited.