“Where no resistance can be made, no courage can be exerted”– Edward Gibbon

Kofi Attah Annan Busumuru passed away on August 18, 2018 at the grand age of 80. The world paid him a tribute unlike to any other statesman of his time. He was the quintessential gentleman and a man of peace recognised the world over for his kindness, humility and fair play. His demeanour towards others and the way he treated everyone he encountered were grounded in his upbringing as an African whose empathy emanated from his passionate attachment to humanism.

This humanist trend was what guided his actions and beliefs throughout his life, and marked his conduct as the world’s foremost technocrat. Paying tribute to such a man is like groping in the dark while blindfolded. One hardly knows where to begin the narrative or what to write amidst the myriads of accomplishments that could readily be attributed to him.

Any attempt to portray the character of such a great man will be a feeble exercise and a mere drop in the ocean of encomiums that were poured on him by the great and mighty from around the world. But it is just such an effort no matter how feeble or insignificant it may seem, that is needed to momentarily draw attention to the legacy of such a personality whose stature traversed the entire globe and left many feeling uplifted by his deeds, and others perplexed by the idea that an African, a Black person, could attain such heights in his life and time. True to Edward Gibbon’s words, Kofi Annan showed resistance and exerted courage in the defense of weaker nations and peoples. Where he seemed to have failed, it was more of a let down by the international community and less his own fault. He made the requisite efforts to assert the prerogative of the international community over the peremptory deeds of the powerful states.

Such facts as his policies and actions towards countries and situations demonstrated during several international crises, showed his fundamental nature as a man of courage and conviction of a unique and intrepid type. The hallmark of Mr. Annan’s life was tolerance and respect for other’s opinions. Ironically, there was a moment in his career when he was denied these same privileges by some from the West, particularly journalists who could not accept the fact that an African could command such global reverence and respect.

A Western journalist in particular, did his utmost to embarrass Mr. Kofi Annan by attempting to stain his name and that of his family, in gratuitously alleging their involvement in the scandalous oil-for-food programme in Iraq. The humanitarian disaster in Iraq was first created by the Western countries despite the strenuous efforts of Kofi Annan to avert it. Afterwards, as if to sooth their wounded conscience, they smuggled in the oil-for-food programme from which their companies and officials were said to have profited. They tried to implicate Kofi Annan but they could not make their mud stick on his person. He emerged unscathed from that sordid episode and continued to grow in stature and dignity.

Kofi Annan’s rise to prominence was not meteoric. It was also not fortuitous, caused by the accidents of chance and circumstance. It was a systematic progression in the service of humanity at the United Nations, spanning over three decades beginning in 1962. Those were years in which he went through the mill of international service, learning the ropes by dint of application and sheer effort. He merited every step in his rise to fame and fortune, and was never given anything on a silver platter. He earned his keep and deserved the positions that he attained in his long and meritorious ascendancy in his chosen career.

Historical events do have connections with people’s births and deaths, even if vicariously in unintended or remote sense. In 1937, a year before Kofi Annan was born, the Empire of Japan started a war with China. One year after he was born, Adolf Hitler ignited the Second World War in 1939 when he attacked Poland. Both incidents caused cataclysmic upheavals in the world. Imperialism became exposed for what it was: a brutal, immoral and retrogressive competition for control of territorial possessions and wealth of other nations. Africa and Asia were awakened from their languid stupor by those two events, and eventually created the momentum and internal dynamics that led them to freedom from colonial domination.

The idea of self-determination and the central role that the United States played in fostering the post-War reconstruction and reconfiguration of the world, forced the erstwhile colonial powers to accept the inevitable fact, that their time was up and that they should let go of their ill-gotten possessions. It was precisely the events subsequent to the War that led to the emancipation of territories under colonial rule, that would later affect most of Asia and Africa.

Ghana, Kofi Annan’s country of birth, was among the first to free itself from the shackles of colonialism, thereby giving Mr. Annan’s generation the opportunity and sense of importance to venture out into the world and become somebody. His joining the United Nations was, therefore, an act that was linked to the newly found fortune of his country, which played a central role in the freedom of other territories in Africa. Kofi Annan’s death too was epochal. He died on August 18, 2018, exactly five hundred years to the day of the enactment by Charles I, King of Spain, of the policy of direct shipment of African slaves from the continent to the Americas across the Atlantic.

Only Al-Jazeera Television seemed concerned about that sordid and lamentable episode in history by airing a special documentary series on this most offensive of all incidents in human oppression. Nigerian and other other African news media probably left the event to pass by, oblivious of its significance and import in the life of Africans and people of African descent.

If Kofi Annan had been alive and still the Secretary-General of the United Nations then, he would have convened the General Assembly to commemorate the event that shaped the world more than any other in human history, and left its terrible and ugly scars on Africans and people of African descent forever. Kofi Annan’s entire life was devoted to creating conditions that gave meaning to human dignity and freedom, two fundamental principles that have been denied Africans by slavery and colonialism. The continued and relentless exploitation of Africa’s resources by outsiders since Roman times to the present, have created the inadequacies and lacunae that characterise the underdevelopment of the Continent.