Tribute to the late Dr Peter Alphonsus Nortei Nortey: He was “Perfect”
When the passing away of Dr Peter A Nortey was announced through various networks to the thousands on whose lives he had impacted during his long career, the overwhelming feeling was, “Aoo! May his soul rest in peace.” As school teacher, university lecturer, planner and counselor; as church elder; as a father and friend, he had moulded the lives of people in Ghana and in far-flung places such as Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Liberia; Zambia, Tanzania and Cameroon.
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Neat and thorough with everything he did; endowed with an attractive physical presence and good manners, Peter was an icon. If I were asked to describe him in one word, I would intentionally forget that he was a mortal and call him “Mr Perfect.”
His life was anchored on three pillars: devotion to teaching and mentoring, devotion to church and worship, and devotion to family and friends. It is by these markers that Dr Nortey, scion of a distinguished Osu family, will be remembered.
As a teacher
My life first crossed Peter’s in 1960 when as a 14-year-old boy I came to St. Aquinas College in Accra where he taught Geography and English Literature. Mr Nortey (as he then was) was a consummate coach. Teaching a subject that required demonstrations and field trips, he made sure that rivers, rocks and soils did not stand as only names in textbooks. He made sure that his students visited their locations, saw and touched them.
Likewise in teaching difficult passages in Shakespearean Literature such as Macbeth, he dramatised the characters, sometimes making fun of himself and earning nicknames behind his back. When the Nottingham Playhouse, a British Theatre Group came to the Accra Arts Centre under the auspices of the British Council, Mr Nortey made it mandatory for every Aquinas student to attend all the three acts of the show and write an essay about four of the major characters.
After three years he left Aquinas to read for his Master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. This was at a time that graduate teachers of his quality were quite scarce in the less glamorous schools. The expatriate Headmaster, Reverend Father Maurice Lesage, missed the young teacher’s services so acutely that he called a special assembly to bemoan the loss of “a conscientious, meticulous and god-fearing young man.”
Fortuitously, my path crossed with Mr Nortey’s again in 1967 at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi campus. Mr Nortey had just taken an appointment as Lecturer in Planning and I had registered to read for a degree in Science. We did not belong to the same faculty so I did not meet him often but on some Sundays after mass, we would stand beside his impeccably clean VW beetle and he would enquire after matters concerning my studies and my personal welfare. He was always his usual jovial and compassionate self, eager to lend an ear.
In 1971 I graduated from KNUST and so lost him from my radar for many years but we met again in the late 1980s. He had gone to the USA to read for his PhD, returned to KNUST and gone off to the University of Liberia, Monrovia on sabbatical leave where he saw the seeds of the civil war sprouting. On his return, he was a regular visitor to my No.4 Jackson Avenue Residence with his car always full with eggs and fruits from his backyard garden. He had graphic stories to tell and his predictions about the future of Liberia proved very accurate.
He had been promoted to Associate Professor Grade One (1) at a time when there were only three Full Professors on the entire campus. When I suggested to him that the occasion of his elevation deserved some celebration, the modest man said with a quiet smile playing on his lips: “Let’s wait for the real thing.”
Devotion to family
He was a family man, devoted to his graceful wife Grace, his son and four gorgeous daughters, two of whose weddings I attended. Peter’s eagle eyes and attention saw most of his children come good in their stations in life.
Dr Nortey’s reputation as a Planner was wide-spread. He was always a very useful member of most committees of the university and of the Catholic Church’s administrations. His services were also frequently sought for national assignments. Thus, for example, when the University of Development Studies (UDS) was to be set up in the North, Dr Nortey was a core member of the committee that did the planning and the groundwork for it to take off. Consequently friends and admirers were hoping that he might one day be appointed Vice Chancellor of the new university. Unfortunately, Dr Nortey’s health started failing him, forcing him to take an early retirement in 1993 to his home at Mataheko.
Until he took his last breath on January 15, 2016, his entire 23 years of retirement had been dogged with pains and irritations which he bore gallantly with prayers and regular visits to hospitals for checkups. In the latter part of this period, he lost his dear wife Grace. So when the Lord beckoned him for eternal rest at age 84, most of his well-wishers breathed a sigh: “Brother Peter, Yaa Wo Odzongbann.” But then others asked, “Why should good men suffer?”
Peter has left an indelible legacy wherever he had stayed and worked. Generations of students and workers who did not meet him would still have stories to tell about him in Asamankese, Aquinas and Kumasi; in Liberia, Cameroon and Tanzania.
His former students and colleagues of Aquinas and KNUST will join his family at the Holy Family Catholic Chapel at Mataheko at 9 am on Saturday, March 19, 2016 for a burial mass and funeral to be followed with a grand memorial service on Sunday 20, 2016.
Did you call Dr Nortey by any of the following repertoire of nicknames: Macbain, Banquo, Nullarbor, Kaligoolie, Cochambaba, Namasagalie? Or, did you simply call him PA or Brother Peter? Come and offer him one rousing but prayerful farewell.
(Author: Blame not the Darkness; Akora; The Sissain Bridge)