On Sunday in the remote village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, a short but solemn ceremony of historical consequences took place.
The remains of Nelson Mandela, the first black South African President, were interred to climax 10 days of national mourning for the African icon, who died on December 5, 2013.
By African tradition, nobody speaks ill of the dead but we know of personalities whose lives and works have impacted positively on the people they led.
From all indications and from the tributes that poured from far and near, Mandela was not just a selfless leader, but he was also a good man.
The 10-day celebration of the life and work of Mandela was a fitting send-off for the man widely seen as the father of democratic South Africa.
It was quite an emotional scene when the coffin containing the body was lowered into the grave; South African military helicopters and jets staged a fly-past. Cannons also fired a 21-gun salute in memory of the former leader of the rainbow nation.
Mandela is being celebrated because aside being a great leader, he exhibited humility in his service to the people.
In spite of his suffering under the strong hands of the apartheid regime, he never retaliated during his days as president of modern South Africa but rather encouraged the blacks to co-exist with the oppressors.
While we celebrate the life and works of Mandela, the Daily Graphic reminds our politicians and the people about the benefits of forgiveness and tolerance in the body politic.
Mandela had reasons to be vindictive during his tenure as president and beyond but he used his forgiving spirit to unify the nation.
There was so much fear in the air in 1994 when Nelson Mandela took over from the minority apartheid regime because of what the blacks had gone through; they were living on their own land but everywhere they were greeted with the signs of “for whites only”.
The Daily Graphic thinks there are useful lessons in our attempt to change the face of Ghana’s adversarial politics to the one that embraces all shades of opinion.
Our prayer is that Ghana will one day get a leader who will say to members of the party he leads that despite the acts of victimisation against them while in opposition, they embrace everybody for the sake of nation-building and not only demonstrate that by word but also by deed.
Let us not kid ourselves; our politics has become so divisive that those in opposition do not see anything good the government does and the government too finds it difficult to acknowledge the good works of the party in opposition while it was in government.
Such is the nature of politics in our country that 56 years after independence, we continue to divide our ranks over trivial matters instead of leveraging the positives that help us to build a strong and better Ghana.
The Daily Graphic will keep reminding the political class that as things stand now, they do not have a choice but to embrace all the shades of opinion in the reconstruction of the country.
Former President Mandela has laid the foundation for the rest of Africa to learn to co-exist in spite of ideological differences.
We should seize the opportunity now to accommodate the rich diversity in our country for the common good. After all, there is unity in diversity.
Fare thee well Tata Madiba. We will sorely miss you but as a good man, you will forever be in our hearts.
