Education is the most powerful weapon anyone can use to change the world, Nelson Mandela once said. For most of us, such words of inspiration were integral in influencing our choice of Ashesi. And so, some years ago, this class of culturally diverse and unique personalities assembled as a cast for a big Soap Opera, waiting to hear the word, “Action!” Today, I am humbled to serve as the voice of this cast, as we celebrate our curtain call after what has been an incredible stage production.
Nana Oteng-Korankye II, Nananom, President of Ashesi, Dr. Patrick Awuah, our Distinguished Guest Speaker, Dr. Myma Belo-Osagie, Luminary University Leaders, Faculty and Staff, Ladies and Gentlemen.
My name is Samuel Safo Owusu-Acheaw, and I am a proud member of Ashesi’s Class of 2021. Welcome, to our big day.
It has been quite the ride. After a first week at Ashesi mainly filled with play, many of us thought we were in for an amusement park romp over our next years at Ashesi. The hard work that lay ahead of us was quickly introduced by our faculty, starting with Joe Men’s early morning calculus sessions, which sometimes ended in counselling sessions when we saw quiz scores that sounded like telephone numbers: 0 2 0 4 1 2… And so it came to be, that over our time here building out this Soap Opera, we have got the chance to work with an amazing group of Ashesi faculty and staff – people we will remember as our Directors, Stage Managers, Script Writers, and many others, for the curtain call that we are now celebrating today. As we now replay the soap opera in our minds, I hope to reflect on some key lessons from our time at Ashesi.
The first is re-echoed from South African business magnate Vusi Thembekwayo’s – choose progress over emotions. There were many times during our years here, where we wondered whether the rigour we believed we were experiencing was all in our heads. Were our courses really that intense? Or were we just imagining that it was? Many of us soon acknowledged that we were not imagining things. We were not imagining that Ashesi had a high-pressure environment, and we were not imagining that there was little tolerance for slacking off even from our peers. We were not imagining that Mr. Sampah’s quizzes could be deadly, and we were not imagining Makosah saying that “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” All this was real. But having accepted these realities, the question was, “and so what?”
We could have chosen to be trapped in an emotional web with our realties – be upset by it all and refuse to participate – or we could choose to harness the intensity and make meaningful progress in our personal development. Often, moments pass after being caught in this web, and we realize we’ve set an inverse relationship between time expended on the emotions of our realities and progress achieved. And so, a simple way to get out of this trap was to ask ourselves, do we want progress or emotions? Because you sure cannot have both. Given commencement 2021, I believe the response is evident.
But unlike most famous Soap Operas, the bonuses we received from our first season were not six figures or plush cars. Instead, we received something called grades. By season two, it was very easy to identify my class as the protagonists of Ashesi’s Soap Opera. This season was quite fascinating; intertwined with particles of suspense. In season two of this classic, not only had my Ghanaian colleagues gotten used to the fact that our Nigerian friends were never going to stop pronouncing “church” as “chorch” and “bus” as “borse”, and our Rwandan and Zimbabwean friends had succeeded in making us believe that some of their prominent delicacies like Ugali and Sadza were synonymous to top continental dishes.
The drama was heightened when Kenobi tasked our mechanical and electrical engineers in their thermodynamics class to build a steam engine as their end of semester project. Contrary to the lecturer’s expectation, nobody’s steam engine worked. Oh, then there was the episode where my MIS colleagues thought everything was a smooth ride to wonderland in their system analysis and design class until writing taking their final exams and only three people ended with an A.
Now, at this point, I would certainly like to thank Dr. Cooke, who not only an economics professor but helped the likes of Poku, Arlen, Lesley Gokah and myself discover our athletic skills – given that we always teleported ourselves from Charlotte, Tanko and Hosanna to lecture hall 116 in just 10 seconds on foot all in a bid to comply with Dr. Cooke’s strictly upheld 5-minute rule.
Key lesson learnt in season two – relationship building. You see, by season two, the complexities of Ashesi had made it impossible to be an island. Often, you were a “hello-away” from gaining insight on that assignment or that stubborn code you had to present to Dr. Korsah the following day. By season two, we had gained full understanding in that, nurturing strong like-minded relationships was integral to how we were going to turn up in season three.
At this point, I bet you are all wondering the story plot for season three. But before we dig in, contrary to the expectations of this unique and culturally diverse cast members, just like season one, we still had not received any form of emoluments.
You know, season three was particularly fun for me because it was a phase where after building strong relationships in the previous season, majority of my colleagues had either started discovering their skillset or mastering them. To start, there was Seli and Lawson, who strongly fantasized the need for creative content generation and design to unearth stories. Then there was Michael Osei and his crew, inclusive of Barnabas, Sampson, Francis among others, who had managed to convince themselves that aside their active mathematics peer support, they were the new Kevin Hart and Martin Lawrence, evidenced by all the ridiculous things they posted on their whatsapp status.
After having a good laugh from Osei and his team, Otchi, Michael Ansah, Gustus, Abeiku, Rahul and Cyril would just blow your mind away with their stunning works of photography and videography. Special shout outs to Pride and Nkosi as well for their beats and music. Then we had the likes of Ransford and Manies, who had purposed to relive Romeo and Juliet on campus.
You know season four was quite epic. There were highlights where Edem and Elikem’s student council leadership had minimized the impact of Covid on student learning through constructive engagement with Ashesi’s executive team. And of course, my class was Ashesi’s maiden year group to conduct fully blown capstone projects online. Regardless of all these occurrences and our ambitions, my class had most importantly understood the concept of servant leadership, underpinned by the ubuntu concept, I am because you are.
Honestly, Gomado’s words sum up the entire journey and I quote, “Gone are the days of FDEs and evaluations – where we were frantic about what grades we would be getting. We are confident that Ashesi has impacted us and we are going to change every fabric of our society.” Unquote.
Now, please hear me – these are not mere words to excite valence shell electrons, because when I look at the engineering dexterities of Issifu, Opanin, Lisa Princess, Munya, Lloyd, Hannah, Tamisha, Michael Agyemang Prempeh, Jean and juxtapose that with the computer science proficiencies of the Lenry’s, Albert’s, Baanahene’s, Daniel Nettey’s, the Goodie’s Kojo’s and Godlove’s, interlaced with the MIS and business acumen of Marian Bernice, Trixy, Foster, Khanitat, Samuel Nunoo, Afriyie, Fremah, just to mention a few, all I can say is ‘wow Ashesi, you just unleashed a cheat code on the globe!”
We have metamorphosed into individuals free from political divides and numerous African cultural logic, eager to initiate sustainable global measurable impact. To our committed lecturers and loving parents, who were significant support systems throughout our journey, we are grateful, and it’s only a matter of time before you read and hear of the things we have set out to accomplish.
Class of 2021, I will end on this note. On Tuesday, February 2, 2021, Dr. Armah reminded me of a well-known economic concept – time value of money. This concept simply propounds that because money can grow in value over time, it is better to receive money today than to receive the same amount of money in the future. And so, in practice, if I had 10 rands today I have a better chance of growing that money to 20 rands in a decade’s time, than I would, if I received 10 rands in a decade.
You see, we live in a world with a strong valuation for intellectual capacity. And so, to put this in better perspective, I coined my own term – time value of self. Class of 2021, I’ve got a question for all of us to reflect on – what exactly are we doing to ourselves to ensure that the proficiencies and intellectual capacity we have today, will increase and sustain our impact tomorrow? Yes, we got the placement offers, we finished top of the class, we started that business, and I can go on and on. But do we have a strategy to sustain tomorrow, what we have begun today? If we got into a time machine now, to catch a glimpse of ourselves in the next decade, will we be filled with the smiles beaming on our faces today or it will be all emotions over progress?
We may not have the answers now, but I am challenging us to think about it and pen down answers when we get them. Afterall, leadership is about two things. First, vision – where we’re going and second, strategy – how to get to where we want to go. In all your actions class of 2021, please, never forget the time value of self – it is so important.
La vida no es la que uno vivio, sino uno recuerda, y como la recuerda para contarla. This Spanish adage means, “life isn’t what one has lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to retell it. Class of 2021, a decade from now, will our time value of self, permit us to remember what we have lived and remember it in order to retell it?
It has been an honor serving as your mouthpiece in sharing this involving Soap Opera which did not yield six-figure bonuses as most of us expected but yielded resilience, an expansive social capital, and a transformative persona and cognitive construct. Congratulations and as you hop of the zoom or youtube, however you joined this virtual graduation don’t forget, wherever you go, whatever you face – choose progress, over emotion.
Nana Oteng-Korankye II, Nananom, Distinguished Guest Speaker, President of Ashesi, Dr. Patrick Awuah, Luminary Faculty & Staff, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you and once again, welcome, to our big day!
