KWENU: Our Culture, Our Future

Book Review

Oseloka Obaze^*

selonnes@aol.com

                              Thursday 27 January 2011 

My Journey… Every Step

Gen. Henry Kwami Anyidoho

(ISBN-978-9988-647-28-5): Sub-Saharan Publishers, Legon-Accra, Ghana; 2010, 365pp, Price $50.00

Available at: http://www.africanbookscollective.com/publishers/sub-saharan-publishers

The measure of any good autobiography is that it must have compelling character, reveal something unique or unknown about the author. It must also contain as much as candour would allow, the author’s unvarnished viewpoints and conclusions on remarkable events. Traditionally, many autobiographies fail to meet this litmus test, since some works of this nature try not to come across as self-serving and not to offend. Still, some autobiographies become in essence, revisionist renditions, or vain and make-me-look-good accounts. This is hardly so with Gen. Henry Kwani Anyidoho’s My Journey… Every Step, a brutally frank and introspective account of a life well lived and indeed, how a boy from the rural parts of southeastern Ghana “travelled his course of life.” This work has character, and is unique and revelatory.

It is often said that autobiographies ought to begin with Chapter 2, an oblique suggestion that some things are best left unsaid.  Not so, for this amiable, robust soldier and son of Africa, who tells all --the good, the difficult, the bad, the ugly as well as obstacles and joys of his life experiences-- very decently. General Anyidoho starts from the very basics and grassroots of his birth and upbringing the rural village of Tanyigbe, which is east of Ho, the capital of the preset day Volta region of Ghana.  He sums up his upbringing with an acute focus on the challenges of the extended family system, manual labour, meagre resources and everyday concerns and the conclusion, “There was nothing too difficult for a rural boy to do”(p6).

Anyidoho recalls how his military career trajectory began with his attending a technical trade school in Kpando, and his having to run away from school to avoid bullying only to be turned back on his father’s orders, “which were to shape the course of events” in his life.   Naturally and understandably too, Anyidoho devotes the bulk of his biography to his military career, which spanned over four decades and from the rank and file life of an army private to a decorated two-star general and United Nations peacekeeper. A true Signals Corps man, he communicates on events, effectively.

As a firsthand witness, Anyidoho writes intimately and unapologetically about one of the pivotal events of the 20th Century, the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, from his vantage position as the Deputy Force Commander and Chief of Staff of the UN Mission in Rwanda. Although this chapter serves as a footnote to his detailed account of those heady days, rendered in his earlier book, Guns Over Kigali, Anyidoho observed, “the deep-rooted nature of the conflict in Rwanda was completely underestimated by the United Nations, in its assessment for troop deployment.  To worsen it, members of the Security Council and indeed, the UN as a whole, did not pay the needed attention to the plight of Rwandese.”  As he surmised, “If I ever felt a sense of total abandonment, it was in Rwanda.” 

Anyidoho narrates how fate dealt him a bad hand amidst the Rwandan crisis, when a $2 million cheque meant for the upkeep of the Ghana contingent, which he commanded, went missing in April 1994, meaning no food, no supplies and no pay for his troops who were already under great stress. Efforts to trace the cheque almost resulted to casualties. He concludes the chapter on his eighteen months tour of duty in Rwanda with some prescriptions on lessons learned. He makes some noteworthy points; inter alia, that “a clear mission and mandate, with the means to execute them, should also be sought before undertaking any such mission”. Rwanda was indubitably a career highpoint for Anyidoho, who remarked, “I consider my role in the UN Mission in Rwanda to be the hallmark of my career as a professional military officer in a theatre of operation.” Still, it is to his greater credit that he navigated the landscape of Ghana’s national and military politics seamlessly and without negative consequences to his career.

Anyidoho devotes the remaining chapters of this 21-chapter book to his various command assignments in the Ghanaian army, other national duties, his retirement from the military in March 2001 and further duties with the United Nations on the Cameroon Nigeria Mixed Commission and subsequently, as the Team Leader of the UN Assistance Cell for the African Union in 2004. Sandwiched in between, were several up and downs of life, but for a rural boy who made good, Anyidoho had received the Distinguished Service order (DSO) “no mean achievement” on 17 March 2000 and promoted to Major-General (two-star) on 20 March 2000. His dream as a soldier had come to fulfilment.

Interestingly, as military professional, Anyidoho never stopped considering himself an apolitical soldier, who nonetheless had clear command responsibilities and loyalty to elected civilian leadership. This tendency, combined with the vagaries of national politics, ensured that some irritating political quirks would intrude intermittently into his life, leading as he claimed, to “several unfounded accusations being levelled against me” (p294).  He summed up one of the root causes of the accusations in the latter part of his career, thus: “A new government was in position and colleagues hitherto thought to be friends began to sacrifice me for a position or favour with the new administration. Friendly Forces suddenly became Enemy Forces. Shocking, but such is Life”(p295). 

My Journey… Every Step, also chronicles in unvarnished ways, Anyidoho’s family life, his various marriages, close relationship with the Presbyterian Church as well as with Ghana’s traditional rulers. He proves himself a man well versed on traditional norms and culture.  If indeed, there were certain values or guiding principles he holds dear, it was the very code of ethics, which he handed to his cadets: “It is better to over-dress than under-dress; live within your means; (and) be honest”;  plus “that everything I want to do in life must be done well and not half-heartedly.” All said, this autobiography serves as Anyidoho’s “Shabby Genteel”, and offer him the grace and medium of acknowledging his pedigree of belonging to a “highly respectable tribe”, which though humble, raised this son to be “too proud to beg and too honest to steal.”  Anyidoho writes proudly about that culture, its values and the unspoilt eco-system of his birthplace, Tanyigbe, which he states, “is the number one place on earth, as far as I am concerned” (p3).

Soldiers are not normally renowned for the niche of lucid and illuminating writing. Still, in My Journey… Every Step, Anyidoho writes in a flowing and embracing style, punctuated with military precision. He shows a distinctive flare, if not fixation, for vital details, including times and locations. More importantly, there is no rancour or malice, even where some might have been justified.

As far as African autobiographies go, My Journey… Every Step is an elixir and a forthright work on a good and forthright life. This book reads rapturously.  It is a brutally frank and at times, an over explicit and revelatory assessment into the deeper recesses of an honest mind. As Lt-Gen. Romeo Dallaire aptly noted in the book’s forward, “Anyidoho opens up a world at once obscure and fascinating to those of us who strive to understand why Africa is as it is. More than anything, he gives us a glimpse of the beauty, the love, the strength that is the true core of the “Dark Continent’.” Surely, out of his rural setting, Anyidoho has gracefully journeyed through life. Certainly, his life is not a vacuum as he has well attested. This autobiography will serve Africa’s young military officers well and should serve as a model for African political leaders, who truly desire to bequeath a candid and inspiring public service record and legacy to posterity.

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Mr. Oseloka Obaze is a founding member of the Kwenu.com Book Review Forum, which is dedicated to the promotion of books with Igbo and Afrocentric themes.  He is also a supporting Member of the African Writers Endowment (AWE).  From 1999 to 2005, he served on the editorial board of INYEAKA, the journal of Songhai Charities, Inc., a New Jersey community-based charity founded and run by Nigerians based in New York Tri-state area in the United States, first as its founding Publisher and later as the Editor-At-Large.   He is also on the editorial board of  The Amaka Gazette, journal of the Christ the King College, Onitsha Alumni Association in America.    His collection of poems, “Regarscent Past: A Collection of Poems” was second among the top three finalists in the poetry category in the African Writers Endowment Publishing Grant Program for 2004.   He is working on a novel titled “Happy Eulogy”.  He reviews books and arts strictly as a hobby.  © Copyright 27 January 2011.