When a loss becomes a relief

Sometime last year, a good friend of mine lost his wife after a long battle with a debilitating disease.

The process drained him – physically, mentally, emotionally and financially.

Slowly but eventually, my friend began to feel a sense of relief – not just because his wife’s pain was over, but also because his burdens had been lifted.

He began to glow, to rediscover himself and slowly reclaim his previously vibrant social life.

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I was delighted for him, but he once confided in me that he felt pangs of guilt every now and then for feeling relieved and rebuilding his life as if he was happy his wife had died because she was a burden.

Multiple requests
This interesting conversation with my friend came to mind the other day as I mulled over the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP’s) devastating electoral defeat last month.

Of course, I was and still am gutted, but I must admit that there have been moments when I have felt some relief at this outcome, peppered with some guilt for feeling the sense of relief, because it may suggest my delight at the NPP losing power.

This, of course, is far from being the case.

An important caveat. I do not attempt to draw any parallels between the devastating death of a man’s spouse and the mere loss of political power by my party or to equate the two. But it was fascinating how the conversation with my friend came to bear on my reflections and experiences over the past few weeks.

It is my experience that working in government for a political appointee – particularly a high-profile person, and in highly-charged environments such as the education and energy sectors – carries its own cross aside one’s official duties that can sometimes be daunting to bear.

Whether requests from friends, acquaintances and sometimes strangers from social media platforms for help with senior high school placement, foreign scholarships, teacher recruitment or transfer, national service posting or other favours, they came in thick and fast when I was at the Education Ministry.

Requests for help with recruitment into nursing, the civil service or the security services also came through, as did requests to facilitate foreign travel.

The pace did not slacken much when I moved into the Ministry of Energy. On top of frustrations and complaints directed at me about power cuts whenever and wherever they occurred, the requests kept coming.

Requests for fuel coupons, prepaid meters, ECG contracts and recruitment into ‘juicy’ energy sector agencies such as Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Ghana National Petroleum Commission (GNPC) or Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) are featured at the top of the list.

Education sector-related requests still kept coming because the presumption was that I should still have links at my old ministry.

In all of this, requests for personal financial support to take off bills and medication (mostly from Facebook contacts I had never met) also came in regularly.

I suppose the presumption was that once I was in government, I had access to unlimited funds and the high echelons of power and so it was possible for me to wave a magic wand and get things done. Alas…

The requests in themselves did not bother me as much because I suppose it is an ‘occupational hazard’ of being a political appointee.

However, it was reactions to my stated inability to assist with most of these requests that bothered me, together with the sense of guilt that my impotence engendered most of the time.

However, gently, I tried to explain to many that I could not help because of my limitations. Quite a number felt unable to accept this, leading to all manner of accusations, with a few friendships strained in the process.

These accusations ranged from insensitivity to selfishness to plain arrogance. Eventually, you learn to live with these, safe in the reality of the fact that you cannot possibly satisfy everyone, no matter how hard you try.

Mixed sentiments
Since the election, the number of requests for favours I have been receiving has understandably dwindled markedly. With the transfer of power to the National Democratic Congress (NDC), I expect these requests to dwindle further to zero.

My relief is still twinged with some guilt. Am I pained by the election results? Of course, I am. Do I miss the pressure from the deluge of messages and phone calls that came my way during the NPP’s tenure of office in government? I am not so sure I do.

Do I feel guilty about my relief? Sometimes.

Of course, it has been a delight and a privilege to assist others where I could when I had the opportunity, particularly at the Ministry of Education during the annual, challenging senior high school placement season.

Those are perhaps my fondest memories on the frontline of public life over the entire period – helping to make a real difference in candidates’ and their parents’ lives when they seemed lost and anxious.

I still cherish the occasional support or guidance I have been able to provide to some of those in need in a variety of ways.

Maybe, as a freshly-minted opposition activist, I should soon start to call on my few NDC friends who will hopefully have the privilege of being appointed into office.

I will be praying hard for them to be appointed so that they can enjoy the hot seat. I believe that within a few months, they will have quite a kaleidoscope of stories to tell as the pressure begins to mount and the lists grow.

With the turning of the tables, I am sure it will be great to relax whilst listening to their stories with wry smiles and fond memories.

Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng,
Head, Communications & Public Affairs Unit,
Ministry of Energy.
E-mail: rodboat@yahoo.com