[ 2021-03-03 ]

Agyeman-Manu: internationally-acclaimed, experienced, astute politician
In her memoir "On All Fronts", published last
April, Cable News Network (CNN) Chief
International Correspondent Clarissa Ward said if
as a Journalist you fully embed or immerse
yourself in the local community you cover, "it
makes reporting richer".








Ward spent time living with U.S. troops, the
Taliban and local families around the world acting
as a communicator between worlds.

I have spent five years in Dormaa-Ahenkro as the
Ghana News Agency (GNA) Correspondent doing
general news reporting. Like Clarissa Ward,
immersing myself in the community or operational
area where I base has been a fundamental working
principle, process and normal part of daily
routine in my journalism career.

In the quest to discharge duties effectively, I
have familiarised, liaised, collaborated, related
and managed to build a solid rapport with
newsmakers and people from all walks life in and
around the area.

Unlike Ward, the only thing I have not yet done
and perhaps might want to do if the opportunity
presented itself is the chance to live intimately
and closely like a single family closely-knit
together, with the newsmakers like Clarissa Ward
did with the U.S. troops and the Taliban forces.

For a Journalist, that could only happen if they
would ever open up and be willing, allowing a
reporter they didn't know so well and much about,
even though they might be slightly or quite
familiar with, to dwell amongst them under one
roof.

In deciding to observe, compose, compile and
report on Mr. Agyeman-Manu from a distance, I had
run into all sorts of problems. First, I
contemplated much about generating the right ideas
that fits perfectly and reflect the character of
this personality I wanted to write about.

Secondly I grappled a lot with which catchy,
attention grabbing headline I could adopt to suit
or match the feature article I have plotted in
mind when my superior prompted me to plan a piece
about him following his re-nomination as the
Health Minister designate. These were pre-planning
battles I had to contend with, in coming up with
this article.

Stephen Sackur, a BBC Journalist, once said aside
their public life, there are lots of things
politicians and newsmakers do privately we know
nothing about. What journalists often do is to
cover activities mostly happening in their public
life.

Telling the story of someone you know intimately,
closely privately and public could be in sharp
contrast as opposed to a personality you could
often see, observe and report at a distance or
from afar.

A totally different narrative, account and picture
of these two scenarios and individuals would
surely emerge in this scheme of things. So context
is key, vital and paramount in reaching this type
of article writing goals.

I cannot say much, judge, measure up, calculate,
reveal more about the level of exposure and
closeness I have had with Mr. Agyeman-Manu, the
Health Minister Designate, the Member of
Parliament (MP) for Dormaa Central, and a
politician who have had to constantly battle
splitting and sharing time between his tight
ministerial schedules working in Accra and coming
down to fraternise once a while, with his
constituents at the local level in
Dormaa-Ahenkro.

A reporter meets his MP for the first time

The first time I met Mr. Agyeman-Manu on a face to
face level was at the District Police Office in
Dormaa-Ahenkro some three years ago. Incidentally,
burglars had stormed his residence. When I had
introduced myself as a reporter with the GNA and
requested he granted me an interview on the
matter, he sharply declined, "I don't want to be
in the news," he replied briefly.

That response left me wondering if he was not that
media friendly. While I held on to that view, I
was at the same time very cautious and hoped that
my judgement was fair, not overly overriding and
the general public’s perception and assumption.

He proved me wrong. For as time passed by Mr.
Agyeman-Manu has carried himself decently,
diligently and creditably as a high ranking
government official, who also held Deputy
Ministerial portfolios during former President
Kufour's regime and later served as the MP for
Dormaa Central Constituency till now.

Personally, he negates the anti-media stance and
viewpoint I had about him as I began to sense and
picked he frequented the three radio stations at
Dormaa-Ahenkro to talk, one of the strategies he
deployed to catch base with his supporters,
particularly those at the rural communities of the
Dormaa Central Municipality, if he was not
physically embarking on community visits.

The Health Minister designate have usually used
such media platforms to tout his immense and
significant achievements during his tenure as an
MP as well as the policies of his government
anytime he was in town.

Popularly known as Kwaku ‘Anoteewa’, to wit,
Kwaku the eloquent one, he never fails to make his
presence known and felt in any public event, not
even less at funerals. He would rise and dance to
funeral dirges, while receiving cheers and
greetings from the crowd at the least
opportunity.

Others call him Dormaa Mugabe for his long
standing occupancy of the Dormaa Central
Constituency seat, after being elected for the
fourth consecutive time in the Election 2020.

His tenure as the former Health Minister in
President Akufo-Addo's first term noticeably saw
him win the heart of President Akufo-Addo who
described him as "a pillar in his government".

Inspiration must be drawn from how he led efforts
to fight the COVID-19 and through whose direction
Ghana placed first in Africa and third globally in
response and effective management of the COVID-19
pandemic.

This is because while performing his duties, he
was once infected with COVID-19 infections, but
this never deterred him in his national duties and
sacrifice.

Across all spectrum of the political divide, he is
well and highly respected. He loves to teach,
share, listen and advise younger politicians,
welcoming with open arms all who come to him for
help.

One of such young politicians, Mr. Kwadjo Asare,
the Dormaa Central Constituency Youth Organiser of
the National Democratic Congress (NDC) once
testified about Mr. Agyeman-Manu’s rich
political and life experience that had built him
over the years into a high profile politician
today.

Mr. Asare thus admitted it was not out of place
for Mr. Agyeman-Manu to voice out concerns about
the need for the NDC to groom someone who might be
capable of unseating him in Dormaa Central
Constituency. The MP had made the remarks shortly
after he had been announced the winner of the
Dormaa Central Parliamentary election on December
7 last year.

Mr. Agyeman-Manu comes across as a sincere, plain
and straight-forward, deeply strategic,
hard-working, accommodating, humble and
diplomatic, with high sense of empathy, all
embracing, compassionate, loyal and committed. No
wonder he has received two international awards,
appointment and recognition as a Board Member of
the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Global
Alliance for Vaccination.

An astute grassroot politician with a great sense
of humour

There's no doubt Mr. Agyeman-Manu has great sense
of humour. At an Annual Performance Review Meeting
organised by the Dormaa Central Municipal Health
Directorate at Dormaa-Ahenkro early this year, he
jokingly remarked his residence had been inundated
with constituents concerns and problems that even
those who had health, medical challenges and
conditions were calling on him for assistance to
address those issues.

"My people at the grassroot who come to me, I have
to open consulting rooms at my house to begin to
observe and examine pregnant women too," he
comically retorted.

He had issued a stern warning to supporters
shortly after he was announced winner in the last
parliamentary elections that, "if you don't stop
calling me Dormaa Mugabe, I will forfeit this idea
of relinquishing the Dormaa Central seat and stay
forever".

A close confidant of Mr. Agyeman-Manu acknowledges
his democratic credentials and character, saying
that had enabled him to contribute in solving some
outstanding challenges that had faced his Party.

Notably, in times when the NPP in Dormaa Central
was hit with a tsunami of Party factionalism.
During such politically-perilous times, he had
remained humble, allowing the Party’s National
Executive Committee (NEC) to prevail with what was
the Party's ideas, position, philosophy and
solutions over the simmering tensions that had
built, strained, characterised and dogged his
relationship with Mr. Drissa Ouattara, the Dormaa
Central Municipal Chief Executive.

With the remarkable, monumental and unprecedented
achievements he chalked as a Health Minister and
an MP during President Akufo-Addo's first term,
particularly in building Community-based Health
Planning and Services(CHPS) Compounds, providing
boreholes for communities, building new Senior
High School (SHS) classroom blocks and renovating
old ones ensuring massive recruitment of the youth
in the health and other sectors of the economy,
donating a radiology machine to the Dormaa
Presbyterian Hospital (DHP), lobbying for
asphalting of Dormaa-Ahenkro town roads, there's
no questioning his competency, credibility and his
ability to perform and deliver in Akufo-Addo's
second term.

To give credence and meaning to this statement
implies, perhaps, he would need to open up even
more to those credible media organisations he
hopes to work with at the Constituency or local
level, to propagate and convey his good, positive
message to the constituents and Ghanaians in
general in the next term.

Having been a victim of a number of disinformation
campaigns, upping his game with the media,
reputable ones of course, will enable Ghanaians
and particularly his constituents to see the right
things, through a window of his achievements what
his life symbolises, and what permanent legacies
generations yet unborn may come to know him for.

Kwaku Agyeman Manu is 66 years old. He holds a
Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and
Statistics, and is an Associate Chartered
Management Accountant. From 1990 to 1994 he was an
accountant at Mim Timber Company Limited, and was
the Director of Finance at Toyota Ghana Limited.
Under the government of President Kufuor, he
served within the period as a Deputy Minister of
State in the Ministries of Trade and Industry,
Interior, Finance, Communications and Roads and
Transport.

He has served on the Boards of institutions such
as the Small Arms Commission of Ghana, the Ghana
Revenue Authority, Bank of Ghana, and the
Divestiture Implementation Committee.

He was also the Acting Chief Executive Officer of
the National Health Insurance Authority in 2006.
He was also the Vice Chairman and Chairman of the
Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Ghana’s sixth
Parliament, but now the immediate past Health
Minister of the Republic of Ghana and is married
with six children

Source - GNA

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