A conversation with former GIMPA Rector, Prof. Stephen Adei | FootPrints

[Music] hello welcome to footprints my name is samuel atamansa we'll take this short break when we come back we'll be opening a whole new chapter in our conversations on this program welcome once again born on 14th december 1948 professor stephen aday is a ghanaian educationist writer economist and motivational speaker he worked with united nations and is well known for his time as director of the ghana institute of management and public administration he is currently the chairperson of the national development planning commission ndpc professor stephen aday tells his story on footprints now welcome back this is footprint now you know the man we are talking about professor stephen a day prof it's good to see you we do and you you keep looking younger every day i see you well people say that i'm getting older vis-a-vis my wife but if you say i'm younger i will accept it you're actually looking younger and fit and we thank god for good health yeah prof so how's life with you by god's grace at seven almost getting to 73 wow god has been good seven is three forty eight forty nine exactly fourteen forty eight actually wow wow wow i thank god for that so what do you spend your time doing these days oh quite a lot of things you are still busy very much so in fact as we are talking i am proof reading three books but one is one in eight i'm about to finish this weekend proofreading the gimpa story also i've just finished proof reading my book on living by strategy and another one coming also i finished it is now going for the printers on managing your life then there's a fourth one which is actually eight series by myself and my wife called papa and nana series is how to teach five-year-olds and six-year-olds to be literate normally within six months without without necessarily going through formal education because every literate parent or everybody who has had six years education using our method can teach a child to read in a maximum of six months and that is for me my greatest but that's a harmful project and it's 73 you have all these things in the works well that is once and of course i'm also the chief executive officer of ghana christian international high school i serve on 10 boards mostly private and a few other ten bolts yes and you save or you are pencil to be a member you save actually people don't understand being what a director is is sharing your experience with the executives you don't go and manage the place and more or less we say we'll be quiet when the executives are doing their work once a month some cases once a quarter you meet as a board so that they report and then you try to give them guidance so in that sense it's not me working in 10 organizations of course of course but that's that's a lot of work man out of your own experiences yes so ideally you would expect that the board member must necessarily have something to offer yes because you must understand what corporate governance is and when you appointed a board member the first month you become a student you must understand the business so that you can be a springboard and a sounding board to the executives for direction yes and that's what you do and about return you didn't write a book on corporate governance well i've taught on it and but i have not written a book but the big problem area well in our part of the world yeah there are two things first of all people the executives not being honest and bringing in the facts because they don't realize that you and this is not always sometimes so that you can then become a an honest and real sounding board that's one thing the other is oftentimes other people serving with you in few cases will not spend their time to study the papers and then they will come and then try to throw in some views here and there whilst it is incumbent upon a board of directors it's a foundational issue that you are going to give your best and your only interest is in the welfare of the corporation and not self-interest and there's so much people thinking that serving on the board is for them to benefit in fact it is against corporate governance principles other than your board fee not to benefit you are there in a a trust position for the shareholders and not it applies to ghana as well what you just said it has to everywhere and for me i will a ghana board member doesn't want to benefit directly and when i'm a board member i insist on that and i have troubles and sometimes i'm thrown out and i'd like to be drawn out rather than to compromise on this foundational responsibility again because in in people see board membership as another as if like pseudo employment is like fortunately in our political parties and politicians think that they do you a favor and because people unfortunately are pointed to the boards not because of their knowledge and their capacity but as a reward so what else if you are really worth your source being appointed a board member is a responsibility and actually you it should cost you something yeah i can see whether i'm a board member of a gra or judicial council or a bank that should not be where i batter my brain it is but unfortunately oh my party is in power my friend is then therefore is the time my turn because that's what the immediately you are compromised and it's one of the biggest challenge in corporate governance in ghana prophecy so with a wealth of experience that you have garnered over the the decades um not just in ghana i must say spanning different continents um you you did your phd in sydney australia is that correct was it taught as in on campus or you did no no no no no during our time didn't have extensions i did my first degree bachelor of economics at the university of ghana did my master's straight away and then i came to work in ghana now ghana investment promotion center for five years took a leave of absence went to sydney for four years to do my pid and came back to be a deputy director and head of research of then capital investment board now ghana investment promotion center now where did this journey begin professor stephen aday where does he come from and born to rich parents born to wealthy parents you know in accra they think that every person from ashanti region it's rich it's rich and came from kumasi yeah yes yes i know always from people i asked a shanties where do you come from says kumasi i said you are not on shanti thank you if you went from kumasi proper you will be from amacom bantema so therefore you say you come from kumasi yes so i cannot my father originally came from drabin in fact nano with your screwball is mine that's where shanti regina easton ashanti okay and my mother came from adansi aquanzer which is about eight miles from femina south okay but my father came with his parents to settle in a dance shire morsi and married my mother three miles away so we were brought up in the village of philamoasi okay in fact where sram was it is now it's not where i was born we have migrated we were in the bush and oh there we go when they did the roots yes okay then we decided to come and watch the clouds yes so where i was born is now a bush but it was it was it was even bush in in the late 70s oh yeah it was when i was doing my masters that we built by the roadside so therefore and but it was a very nice clean village outside we had about seven houses on one side and about five houses on the other that's all that we were farming community no light of course no road i mean you weren't hoping to see lights okay but we're happy yeah we go to the farm we come we for my first 15 years i remember i ate a peso for breakfast and lunch and food for dinner for 15 years and you're okay oh yeah and we had a lot of vegetables on the farm and plantain and yam so so say in a shanty region because it's a bigger town with a secondary school they think that i come from which i insist that i am an ambassador of shiite yes that general area when you are from boston you joined the cape coast kumasi road just one and a half kilometers you are in my village okay but it's looking good now oh yes we have even a nice fat road i saw that oh nice and and and we have a secondary school by the way oh should a mercy has gss shs yes because i decided to have a branch of our ghana christian international in israel was it oh is that correct and for four years all the students have passed the wassi only two didn't qualify for secondary school tertiary education in the first year tell me how is that how is that different from what you have in dodo well don't know why it's a boarding school for people like your children oh man a community school you must come from 10 kilometers the villages there even we don't allow people from farming to come they have a secondary school there are media secondary school yeah they have snakes on people from the past we are we have banned and from busy no more when we couldn't get enough students temporary we had about 80 students borders from outside but all the 280 apart from these are from the villages what's the point because you're not going to make money with this no in fact we subsidize every student from about 3 000 cities a year and the point is this when some of us by god's grace were able to go through not even secondary school training college it seems no children were having the opportunity because they cannot compete before the free education to go to secondary school and their parents even couldn't afford so my wife and i felt that the best that we can do for the community was to have a secondary school day and whatever it takes to make sure that the children pass so when they come unfortunately ninety percent of them when they come they cannot read and write having finished jhs i it's it's it's painful that the teachers are paid and they refused to teach i said they refuse because they are capable and during the examination time they will collect money sister cds from each of the children in the name of extra class no to bribe the wiki people the police and the head teacher and everybody yes so they then help them to pass so people come with straight ones eight twelve and yet one of them when i they was asked to fill even a form what is the name of your village write it was it at the emirates mean to me super wow so in the fair seven years ago when we started the school and i found that one i said teachers please take them through class 1 to jhs 3. they said no no no this is crazy i said no no first truck first track take the class one books let them go through this one week they know it that's fine so they then go to class 2 class 3 class 4 especially mass english and we were helping them also computer science you won't believe it after one year all the children were literate and then we started the normal secondary school and they got hundred percent passed and even at chelsea university gave two mastercard scholarships so to us people don't realize that is that's amazing my greatest contribution to my society and this is with contentment it's a great game and i go there i sit with them i eat with the kids we laugh and we do it and now at least every year we are having about 100 of them and they go to school for free is that correct no they other than that you can't discriminate i asked them to pay 450 ghana cities a term so 1 350. but that is just a camo we give them free clothing the school uniform is starting free books and every book they need is provided for them their laboratory it's in fact for two years we won the national computer typing by eddie v it was won by shromasi school at their parmar compound that's the one national competition so that is free everything and since they are in their villages and their towns we go and pick them free transport for free okay so and then each one of them has a free proper lunch which i like the qualification proper lunch how we don't say anything at all and we make sure that their lunch is such that even if they ate the one meal it will be sufficient health wise for them so whatever day we eat at home in the morning and the evening we will allowed so it's been a wonderful experience interesting this contributing back to your community the community that that's that's um you know maybe medium yeah tell me growing up in fremont class one through um elementary school how was it like well it was for me school was a privilege because actually my father unfortunately had insisted of all his many children a polygamist actually accompanied him to farm and not go to school so my mother dissented and they nearly divorced over my head so i went to school a bit late and therefore my father was the latest what a year about seven years okay so better not too late yes i was able to make up for the year so therefore i didn't my sister had finished elementary school so that wasn't true that's middle school yeah middle school so but all in all you have to travel once you have to go to up to p6 p6 that's primary sexy six so i enjoyed school i was able to cope with the is it because you are first all the time i must say that for the 10 years apart from one term i was always faced well you definitely enjoy so i and oftentimes the teachers will make me stand in and teach for them so therefore i wasn't and that helped me because i didn't have books so the teachers books i was able to use so it was a and then when you reach p6 then you have to compete with about six or so villages for one middle school at brookfield at brookfield united middle school yeah and so which is a few yesterday a little over one kilometer so every morning you go there's a park you go to the school and most of you walk oh yeah walking one and a half kilometers to school it's normal because our farm is three kilometers oh yeah so actually when i talk about that's why even though we were poor i had only one cloth a yeah one school uniform i never felt more because everybody was poor it was the standard yes poverty was the standard yes the only people who felt i felt they were privileged was those whose mothers roasted plantains so they'll get the plantain to eat and then they'll give you small so therefore that's where the that was not much so you will go to more schools i stand at 10 or grade 10 and that's you go and look for a place to squatter in refuge to prepare for your hall that's what that middle school living certificate yeah so it was very wow i never the only time i felt a bit disadvantage was when i passed i got admission to premper college in fan zip i agreed murray at various stages and all of them my parents couldn't sponsor then people whom you were relatively better than were going to secondary school then you realize there's something wrong with you that's the only time i felt the first boy not going and the second 10 people going to secondary school so let me put it in so first six years in say school you you moved to united middle school in uh bra very good meaning that you went through um from one middle school one through four four one two four yeah up to from four yeah but i was passing secondary school along the way because from form two you could start right now yes and i was always passing so you pass yes uh i got an admission to personally no way we used to call it tempe so i did i was calling myself when i'm meeting fascinating people i said that you know i am an attempted publisher here wow but of late pepe college people have give made me an honorary member so well if you check you actually got admission yes yes i got admission that i i can swear on it wow so i go i spoke at the alumni and they made me an honorary life member that's that's well deserved i mean okay so this is professor steven a day um taking us through the footprints and hey there's a lot more ahead we'll take this break when we come we'll see from brafia middle school where the next step was we'll be right back welcome back this is footsprint and i'm here with professor stephen a day i mean this name when you google it the number of things you see you'll be shocked that is it all points to the same person at times you wonder okay this is not because in in one stream he's an academic and another is an economist and another is a teacher and another is a theologian yes theologian he's a preacher he's a family man he's a counselor look he's many things to many people and a farmer and a farmer actually a farmer yeah i don't know what he will become to you after this episode but let's hear him again so from broadway to middle school you proceeded to secondary school eventually no okay tell us about that of course i couldn't go to secondary school for want of actually i believe financial reasons if i had gone i have gotten scratched but we couldn't pay that mission fee so therefore we couldn't go and try an admission fee at that time would be how much today's equivalent maybe 15 gallon cities also in today's cds yeah so wow but it was almost like hey that would be a top money for three months anyway but then i sat for post elementary school certificate a teachers examination our past okay so i was admitted to you also training college which was actually in kumasi oh he wasn't committed you know had a system whereby he had decided where the training colleges will be but while they were being built you look for where there is a school a building and then start so we also trading colleges in commercial for several years and i thought i was going to kumasi when we went to the campus european there were buses waiting for us i said what's the matter oh we have finished your campus campus in security also so they put us in the buses straight through dunk i am fury and sister miles of untied roads that means hundred kilometers of entire road which took a whole day and when you you got there when you put your hand there it was about a quarter of a inches of of dust yes dust so we went there but it was a blessing because nobody ever went for a meeting you want to travel back for me term or anything else so we stayed there but when i was in standard 7 grade 10 i asked my teacher which was god sent a philosophical question teacher amwa from urapan in says that sir if you didn't go to secondary school can't you go to university [Laughter] so i asked he says oh you can't this is how he says by standing on your own by correspondence course so that's all i didn't know what the correspondence cost was at the time so when i went to teachers college which year was just by the way 1964 64 it's when you entered yes teacher training college so i asked my seniors what is correspondence course and that time they were giving us an allowance about five cds a term a month which was a big money from the for the villager if i had gotten that one i have gone to the fancy room [Laughter] so i asked the seniors oh you can order the good old days you can order the steady material from london i say square they gave me three woodsy hall metropolitan college and rapid resource college yes i said that i like the name rapid resource college [Laughter] so my first money i ordered for that and boy i was only just past 16 years i had no responsibility imagine steady that two and a half years in my third year first time i attempted all level you've been in your third year in certificate teaching courses you i stated on my own and i attempted the whole level london university and of course the subjects i took you will laugh but don't laugh no no no no ancient history yeah tree religion theology and then of course english mass we had to do it and even i attempted literature which chaucer and alexander pope i couldn't understand it anyway but i attempted it when the results came two and a half years in training college i passed four but of course in past months i passed geography i passed ancient history and i passed religion and all that we needed was five so english if you go to go field which is difficult you need to do more so everybody was almost hey steven has passed four subjects it was a history so i was aborted immediately to register for a level the following years in mathematics geography and i said what would be the fourth subject i said economics i didn't i haven't studied so i added three economics and i ordered for the materials so mathematics mathematics i liked it geography and economics then i added the english because i had to now pass the english and so i studied the canopies for only 11 months that was the lowest grade though you know it wasn't the lowest pass yes um you know i'm i'm asking and i got geography b and mathematics subsidiary that was the use of this yes and then i passed the english with e maybe by two marks you didn't have anybody teaching you only my correspondence three years after elementary school so you read yourself yes that's with your own understanding yes but that the notes were very good if you followed it it gave you it was great that it was mathematics how are you doing it yes the same way it's yes you follow it and then you send it and they will grade it and if your mistakes they will come and tell you where to correct it and that's what it was a wonderful system yes wow so i was qualified after three years of elementary school but i stayed to finish my uh the certificates uh teachers advocate and started teaching small before community so by the time you are done with teacher training you have your a level as well your whole level and a level yes i was qualified to come to the university of ghana whoa so during good old good good old days five four levels to a level even because they're gone we're only 3 000 people so did you so let me take that again from prophet drew you went to um we also um teacher training yes finished with teacher certificate all aboard in four years so after we also where did you go well they posted a very interesting time not too far from about three miles we used to call it adrian was the nickname of that no that was the name then now they have changed people have been laughing at them so they call it uh do mercy now it was written the name of the village is called adrian yeah food street but modern day technology is called so please why don't you use that road that is [Laughter] [Music] i was teaching from four but then i got admission to legon so i left so i and i came to legon to do my bsc good wow and it was three years so i finished my bachelor of science before those who went to facility came i finished that i came to do that you mean your year mates yes that went to their bachelor's degree before they came to lego you mean before they came yes because it was seven years now four past three so you mean through this yes you had to shortcut it by another two years and i went and did my masters and came and taught them in lagos those who taught him who did economics are you serious well that's interesting so your pathway which at the time was a disadvantage it was a disadvantage the greatest advantage wow that's amazing okay so and since then teaching has been in my blood i love you well you're still teaching us so in lego tell me your time in ligon would be late 60s yes 68 68 that's when you entered league one okay and which courses did you were you offered i was offered theology economics and geography but after two weeks of theology i said i won't do it sad to say i was i was born again christian i love jesus christ and some of the things they were saying in the class i knew were not true where and so i said i won't do it theology and i went to prophet abraham sociology i said i beg you i can't i won't do that i would sit under these people for three years can you let me change and he asked me a white man oh young man so when you get honest in economics will you do a sociology will you do it of course how was he going to say no i said yes so i ended up doing sociology geography and economics and during those days you don't do any major examination until the end of the year if you if you fail you go home the whole year nothing till end of year and when you are misbehaving seniors will tell you everybody of you is coming and me i didn't so when we finished i had to go to framatic i didn't have money to come and even look whether i have passed or not you may want to finish the fe yes so do you know what i just had the european school i took my back i came to the corner i don't know whether i have passed or not so i went to look when i went straight it was all you know in front of bomb library to go and see sociology honest geography honest economics honest it's called i said yes then a friend of mine had audacity to my meat say stephen i thought we were going to fail and i said ah why were you thinking that i was going for judgment he says you friday you are going for prayer meeting saturday you are going for bible study sunday you go to preach in secondary school you're crying for seven days you're failing now what he didn't realize is that they will spend all their time in the jcr drinking and chatting and going for dances so why did he expect that if you're a christian then you adapt wow anyway so my brother older brother convinced me to do economics because i like geography most because geography came to me naturally naturally yeah economist i had to struggle better but it took two days yeah you have to take the advice of your bigger brother yeah but it it it turned out well as well yeah but but tell me life on campus who are some of your myths that's that have been in public life that you know myths meaning within the period you are there maybe not just economics within the peers all the names that we can relate unfortunately when you get to 73 okay you got a maze like valet recently doctor boy my best friend no okay his cousin was a a lot of them have died and but the my best friends were dr mahmoud i don't know whether he's back in ghana but he worked with a world bank an african development bank that became a strong christian so a lot of them could do but i don't know where most of them are at this moment i scarcely meet them but i'm sure they know where you are what if you put me on this platform you are just as overexposing no no no we need to hear yes but uh some of my friends in training college are dead and the rest you know so this christian life managing it with academic life in in in a tertiary environment i'm curious how did you manage it because it looks like you you ended up getting the best of both worlds well i think that sometimes christianity like being a pagan oh and i don't worship or any other region it's life it's not it's not the question of you know my christianity when by god's grace i repented of my sins and accepted jesus christ as lord and savior at the age of 18 at several trading college no i always i wake up between four and five a.m to read my bible and to pray and try by god by the help of the holy spirit to live the christian life it's not something you do and then you go and do academic no it is part and parcel when you are studying you are studying as a christian you are cute in examination so it is not a dichotomy when whether i am teaching economics or i'm director of gimpa or gra head i'm there as a christian so you're talking about the practice the practice both the belief and the practice okay so let me put a belief in a practice now remember somebody was saying that you were committed to christian activities and events in a manner that they thought i would fail yes so so i'm looking at this because to them when they saw me on friday going for prayer meeting they're going for christian lectures on saturday evening and sunday it's a waste of time but they were spending more time in chatting sitting yes here drinking sometimes maybe going after girls and other things so they spend more time except that their lifestyle is different the thing is you know when i i we are way younger than your generation when i was in knusty i as a christian i disagreed with a particular habit like my colleagues would do they had some we had something called one as to wake up in the middle of the night and go to patio stadium i had to pray to pray between 1 am and 3 am now for me i couldn't because i loved myself but i was consistent in waking up at four in my quiet to read my bible and to pray and a lot of those people were just bombing the exams yes you come and sleep in class so this is where um how to manage actually that was wrong and they didn't get someone to advise them being a christian doesn't mean you go wake up for me anyway i would have died if i didn't have my servant i would see christianity is accepting jesus as your lord and savior and letting your life be directed with the bible as your standard of living it has nothing to do with this shouting at this time the shouting has taken over they don't allow you to sleep anything it's called cabin and then when they finish they go and some of them go and steal and fornicate please if we go to that area we will need about five episodes we'll stop there because they are cobain i hear that even some people greet themselves in tongues oh man christian is living the christ like life in all spheres of your life in your family life in your work life in your relationship and everything you don't call yourself a christian and go and get a bribe yeah no and you think that god is not in in the office but this thing is is deep because you know you go into a retail retail industry let me use industry supply chain warehouses and you have christians all they do is keep stealing keep stealing they are working as super tenders they are stealing i doubt that i doubt they are christians they are church goals because if a man or a woman has the holy spirit in them and they go and say that they are tongue-speaking you cannot if you are truly born again you cannot do wrong and be able to have your peace it doesn't mean that you are perfect but when you do wrong you will be so convicted by the holy spirit and anyone who is born again and lives in sin habitually i doubt their faith this still footprint is not church it's footprints and we are talking we are having a conversation with professor steven you can have you can have uh 30 minutes of conversation with prof and not have some of these conversations about the christian values and how they should impact society we are still in lagoon we'll be exiting university of ghana soon that will take a short break when we come back we see how he left university of ghana what did he do after that and how did he end up in australia footprint right here we'll be right back welcome back this is footprints my name is samula tamensa and i have professor steven aday here tell me your your surname is a day a-d-e-i right yes at the end a day a day okay but it's all the same it's the 14th lunar month so it's a die when you are equipping them a day a day i die all of them are but in my family we are set where seven brothers had three or four different spellings because depending upon who was your teacher in class 1. so you have a-d-d-a-i-a-d-a-e-a-d-e-i so in front of your teacher whatever your teacher was an ashanti aquaponic okay that's interesting because our parents were illiterate today yeah they couldn't be bothered my first name do you know who gave me you go hey what's your name comrade me what's your father's name today you are called steven a day that's all [Laughter] so so prof um which year did you leave legon yeah you're bachelors yes 1971 71 yeah now when you left university of ghana what were you thinking you wanted to do well giving the poor background just getting some job so that you can look after yourself and your family so and god was good to me i got i was offered a job as an economist in the bank of ghana assistant manager by backless bank evaluation officer by capital investment board my ghana investment promotion center and then assistant economist in the ministry of finance where i did three months as a vacation job so that was the good old day you young ones were not born so now it's unemployed so at least four but eventually i decided that i would not go to the banks and do you know the reason that i did money in banking i said that how can i go to my village and say i'm working in a bank the next morning everybody will line up this guy wow that's real yes so i chose to go to the investment center but fortunately i got i was offered the scholarship commonwealth scholarship to go and do my master's at strathclyde just when just when you get yesterday so it was a big decision i went to my father in the village i said dad this is but how did you grab what you did so well with your first degree the first six who did the economics were all giving was scholarships four of them were sent to university of ontario and then the two of us me and our best man got strategic on the basis from glasgow yes on the basis of our school whoa yeah you were first class no throughout that time the economist it was wicked the expression of all your face tells it oh give one first class in 10 years that was the rule so no matter and the year before us mankind had gotten first class so what was it yes yes he was better from born in kumasi right so he became a world bank vice president so all of us were first-class materials but we were given second upper and when we went to do our masters all of us were tops and our doctorates were tops in fact in the university of strathclyde i was told that my master's degree was the best social science results in the university's 200 years wow and yet legon will give you a second upper that was watching these days do i they were preparing you for strat clyde but so so when i my father who is illiterate says that you know us we are poor whatever you think is good but i decided that i'll risk and go and do my master's first so that i went for two years and then did my masters and when i came ghana investments a capital investment board as soon as i came and said you know i passed and before i went i went and told them why the same doctor don't call for john kumasi great great mentor so i went and told him and he says go and do your masters when i came back i went to his office he says go and sit down and start job and he mentored me for five years okay we'll go back to strathclyde i'm i'm you know because you must have been interested no because you see with with you've established your background yeah clearly um and and you have not you know cultured under difficult financial conditions normal financial conditions relatively i'll say most people when they get that opportunity to go out they don't even come back and i'm footprints and i'm trying to see how you managed it and who what lessons we can draw from this because you see i'm not being super patriotic but i love ghana i love god so the idea of in fact when i finish my doctorate it was the time ghana was called ojayakul maureen's time nearly years of glories when i came back my boy my boss told me why did you come but for me it was it didn't even occurred to me that i finished my doctorate and not come to ghana yeah even the fact that i later on joined the international public service was because in 1985 i had a row with the government and had to resign i had no job and they offered me a job at the commonwealth right and when i was at my peak at the united nations i was u.n ambassador to namibia having served also you were ambassador to south africa and i was a director and i felt that 51 years with a life job in the u.n that i must come together and make a contribution before i get to it and then you landed at the airport in glasgow what what how was that experience that episode when we landed at pristin airport from london we transferred i went with my best man who just passed he went with british caledonian yes and then we got down there and when we got down there he was his father was a u.s clutcher oh that does it he was good and you know what what he said i just turned and just looked somewhere just thank god quietly i didn't say anything because if i was spoken i said you you was he manny just said listen what me from i just kept quiet i didn't say a word it was just two african boys yes uh-huh so it was just thanking god for the opportunity and for such that you know that at that time we had forest forest exchange control foreign that you allowed only after 50 pounds when we were going but when i went to commercial bank to get my the bank of ghana had approved i said i had only 50 cds which was done seven it was a little shy of seventeen pounds so the most you you have been given fifty you won't take it i said my friend is there the money fifteen garnet cities have given you just give me the pounds would [Laughter] so it was but glasgow was a good were you met at the airport no no no they just gave us direction we just took a bus because they have told us that when we get there we should go to the take a bus and go to the ymca until we were there two weeks before to school europeans okay so this is in the 70s yes 71. uh did you struggle with with um color and and no generally we had a good there was only one experience of over discrimination on the street but generally no it was i didn't have a problem there we would join the church christian fellowship was good the academic work was not difficult both of us we do you meet any other ghanaian students in fact the former ndc chairman yes she was one year ahead of me in fact he was the one who was married so we'll go to his house very well spoken he said he's a good friend of mine wow and whilst in this year we will meet and we'll have fun yes governor was a very good friend i always remember him with you know connected with strathclyde and his wife was he he was hourglass so we were there for one year one and a year and a bit okay we finished our coursework and then but we had it has been arranged we went to uc economic commission for africa to write our thesis in london no in ethiopia oh okay so we we went there and wrote our thesis it was part of our training and then we sent it back and then returned to ghana in october 73. and then did you follow it through with your phd or you have no i worked for five years okay so tell us about that came back to ghana yes it was good i was an officer at the capital investment board and ghana investment promotion center enjoyed my work mentored by kwame dunkov who data became de facto minister of finance so during that time i had even my one leg in the capital investment board and i was supporting him finance ministry finance right introduction to budgets and everything else wow so it was wonderful he will strike you not because he wanted to punish you but so that he can bring the best of you and when you made a mistake he will correct you so he's i call him still dad and i was so pleased when he was about 83 launching his autobiography he asked me to come and speak at the place wow he still called me but he's at 80 something yes dr duncan for you are so busy intelligent working his mind is sharp and we've been trying to interview him we've been to kumasi yes we spent three days in kumasi we couldn't get him no not that he'll speak with us yes but something now comes up he has to go to mampon so [Music] he says that you know his son has shown him that i have shown you the trick that's lovely so um so i worked for five years got there another commonwealth scholarship to go and do my doctorate in australia wow and i spent four years there a very productive yes with a pid chatted secretary and three children [Laughter] i like the emphasis on productive years so so by this time you you you wish you were certain which career pathway no no not just it was always economics so in all these economics and did my indoctrinating economics and all the time when i was in ghana five years i was teaching at lagoon part-time okay and when i returned from australia i was still working on teaching economics the other day i was surprised when the governor said that i taught you international trade and finance in lugon yes so he sent me the title [Laughter] no last night so you're still teaching in university of ghana as a part-time lecturer yes in the same faculty that you found yourself i love teaching so whether you pay me or not i teach at lego at gimpa as rector nine years i thought for 9 years teaching is in your blood that can be taken away every day i thought every year i thought wow so economics what was what what again going moving from ghana to australia australia is very far from ghana and and used to 24 hours in the air to get the change plane three times 24 hours what was your route through south africa at the time that time you couldn't go through south africa i have to go to europe and from europe to go to asia and from asia you go to australia wow 24 hours travel time only one time but lovely when you go there there are nice people we spent i spent four years there i came home only once to do research but four years is a long time yeah but i was with my wife so what do you want to do okay okay and producing three children [Laughter] that's very productive oh yeah yes so you're in sydney all through of course yeah i think that's where you live better travel but that's where the university at no point were you tempted to remain there that's not once i didn't have office well in fact the only one was to go to vanuatu i said the island yes as a missionary okay which i accepted by the way because i wanted to just serve the lord a little bit as a missionary but eventually you know they rejected me the church that i'm overqualified [Laughter] oh lovely so finishing the phd and then coming back to ghana and then came to then head the research department of capital investment ghana investment promotion center that was in 1781 81 okay and for five years before i joined the commonwealth secretary okay so this is the story of um professor steven aday from his beginning and elementary school right through his phd now you know this has been footprint there definitely will be a second part to this thanks for joining my name is samuel atamensa [Music] you

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Length: 56min 46sec (3406 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 11 2021