Ghanaian football administrator and politician, Dr. Nyaho Tamakloe has shared the events that formed his no nonsense approach to public service.
He made this known on Starr chat with Bola Ray on August 29,2024.
“I think it might be through my formative years, especially when I was in private school. I’ve been in Presbyterian schools, you know, and I was in private school and Presbyterian schools, and we were taught to speak our mind.Then I came to another Presbyterian school, boarding school, which was established by the Germans in 1843. Still there was two thousand of us. And there, we are rarely taught how to speak freely and speak our mind”, he recounted.
” And I went to Zankwale to be saved. Then, of course, when I was in Europe, you can see that the whites express themselves very freely. Now, in the army, when I joined the army, the same thing I saw there.And I don’t see why I should get frightened or get worried. If I’ve done something wrong, no problem. When I was in the army, I was punished for doing something wrong”, he added.
When Dr. Nyaho-Tamakloe looked back on his military career, he recalled an occasion where a white Canadian commander, punished him for remaining on leave too long.
“And I understood it, because by then the commander was a white man. You follow me? I was nice to him. In fact, we had a nice life, and I spent more than the days I could have given.And I was punished for that. And the commander was a white Canadian commander. His name was Lieutenant-Colonel Thiebaudville”, he emphasised.
” I was nice to this gentleman. But he rarely turned me around, because I planned to leave the place to go back to Europe.The idea was that, you know, stay in Europe for years, and all of a sudden, you are being drilled left, right, left, right, left, right”, he stated.
He had originally intended to leave the army and head back to Europe, but after speaking with the commander, he changed his mind.
“I was surprised, but not very much, because that’s the way I do things. So, he asked me to sit down. I sat down.
I was just a bloody cadet then, you know. I sat down, and then he said, Officer Cadet Nyaho Nyaho Tamakoa, if you leave Ghana today, I know you can definitely go out to Europe or America, but don’t forget you are building a nation. I’m talking about 1974.And believe me, that changed me completely. When he used that word, don’t forget you are building a nation. Now, of course, I went and I brought on scholarship”, he explained.
He also described some of the punishments he had to endure and how that made him tough.
“I should be back to build a nation. So, he was right. So, that had a huge impact. Absolutely. But after that, I was punished. I was punished.I had to carry my harbour sack and my pouches, what do you call it, you dress in battle order, with a huge rifle. And you’re put on, what do you call it, on the grief square, with Versailles behind you, you know what I mean? For about an hour, every day for one week. So, you can imagine. But that toughened me also”, he expressed.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.comg.gh/Mary Asantewaa Buabeng
