African journalists have often criticised the people of the African continent for failing to give teeth to the various conventions to which they have voluntarily acceded, that ostensibly aim at making Africa as hospitable to all its inhabitants, as can be found in some other continents.
Many African countries still demand visas from Africans who want to visit their countries (despite the fact that the African Union was born in Addis Ababa a good 60 years ago.
Trade between African countries – even between the closest of African neighbours – often lags behind that which exists between African countries and European or American nations. Yes, some of these drawbacks were designed by Africa’s former colonialists to serve their own commercial interests. But how long will it take Africa to realise that they were conned by the colonialists and that they should now embark on an accelerated programme of promoting intra- African trade?
Now, here am I, an African journalist, criticising the continent’s political leaders, for failing to make African unity a real and tangible thing for me and my people. But how many journalists from other African countries do I know? Do I discuss Africa’s problems with them and work out common approaches by which to solve these problems? Do I become concerned when African journalists are maltreated in other African countries, as often happens? More important, if an African journalist is threatened with imprisonment or even death elsewhere on the continent, do I organise my country’s journalists to try and save our colleague from harm?
I hang my head in shame, for I do none of the things I have mentioned here. And (I am afraid) if my colleagues of the Ghana Journalists Association are honest, they will share my shame.
For – alas – I cannot easily recall any occasions when the GJA has called me to a meeting to discuss problems that have arisen between an African Government and its journalists. Indeed, neither can I recall a time when I have been asked to participate in a programme aimed at providing relief to Ghanaian journalists who have fallen foul of the boot of authority written big!
Thinking about these issues, it occurred to me that this was not always the case. One person attempted, long ago, to use his position as the then Secretary of the Ghana Press Club (later changed to the Ghana Journalists Association) to unite Africans on the continent in one “Pan-African Union of Journalists”.
His idea was to establish PANJUG as a “one-stop” continental mechanism, through which the concerns of African journalists could be made known to the African people and, in the final analysis, to the world.
That person was Henry Ofori, a humorist of the first order, who achieved fame as a major entertainer in the pages of three of the major newspapers in Ghana – the Daily Graphic, The Sunday Mirror and The Ghanaian Times. (Incidentally, Mr Ofori was my immediate predecessor as editor of the Ghana edition of the Pan- African magazine, DRUM. But I write this not because I have very warm feelings towards Mr Ofori personally, but I regard his example as one that should be tapped to serve the interests of the modern generation of Ghanaian and African journalists.)
First, from his position as Secretary of the Press Club, Ofori initiated moves that enabled the Club to be affiliated to the International Organisation of Journalists (IOJ) based in Prague.
This was a brave move on his part, because in those days, an organisation based in Prague could easily be tainted with the notion that it was a “Communist-front” body of some sort.
But Ofori was a fiercely independent thinker and the idea that he could be dictated to by anyone – Communist or Capitalist – would have made him break out in the uproarious laughter for which he was well known!
His hope was to use his seat on the IOJ to persuade his fellow African members of that body to form an African journalists united entity that would be wooed for membership by international journalistic organisations from all over the world.
Henry Ofori’s efforts at uniting African journalists did not yield the results he hoped for. The Convention People’s Party, then Ghana’s “One Party” that was supreme in everything, somehow got persuaded to back the efforts of Mr Kofi Batsa, editor of The Spark, to lead a rival Pan-African Journalists Organisation.
Ofori was a gentleman and did not fight back against Kofi Batsa and his supporters.
But Ofori’s efforts were acknowledged elsewhere in Africa: so much so that when he passed away in Ghana on September 4, 2013, at the age of 89, he received a lengthy obituary, composed of no less than 1,000 words, from the leading newspaper in South Africa, the Johannesburg Sunday Times. Ironically, Ghanaian newspapers, on the other hand, gave scant attention to his passing, though this writer did give him a very good send-off in the Ghanaian Times.
Who was this Henry Ofori? He was a unique character in Ghanaian and African journalism. His forte was his sense of humour, which he exhibited through articles so funny that they were received with warmth in both his native Ghana and elsewhere in Africa. Ofori was exposed to a huge African market through his connection with Drum magazine, which, from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, was publishing separate editions in South Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, Ghana and Nigeria.
The articles for each edition of Drum were compiled locally, but many articles were shared by all editions. Usually, the most important common commodity in all editions was the beautiful cover girl, photographed in full colour. But Henry Ofori’s humorous pieces, written under his pen-name, Carl Mutt, were also often printed in other editions. This helped to give the lie to the erroneous notion that Africans from different parts of the continent are indifferent to what made the people of other areas of Africa laugh or smile.
Henry Ofori’s writing life began in an exceptional manner. He was teaching at the Government Secondary Technical School at Takoradi (then one of the most prestigious educational institutions in Ghana) when the newly-established Daily Graphic, set up by the Mirror Group in London, made him an offer to leave teaching and become an in-house “off–beat” columnist.
Despite his popularity, no prizes have been established in his name to honour journalists who show exceptional promise in different aspects of the profession. Have Ghanaian journalists heard of, say, the “Pulitzer Prize”? Why can’t one be established in Ofori’s name?
Such a shame.
BY CAMERON DUODU
