Senior Ghanaian citizen, Awoonor killed in Kenya gun attack
A senior Ghanaian citizen and former Professor at the University of Ghana has been killed in the Kenya mall attack Saturday September 21, 2013.
Ghana government officials have confirmed that Prof. Kofi Awoonor, 78, is among the 39 persons killed by the gunmen.
A press statement from the Ministry of Information says “Government regrets to announce the death of former Chairman of the Council of State, Prof. Kofi Awoonor in Nairobi, Kenya this morning.
Prof. Awoonor died from injuries sustained during an attack on the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi this morning which Somali militant group Al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for.
Ghana’s High Commission in Kenya has confirmed Prof Awoonor’s untimely passing and indicated that his son who also sustained injuries in the attack, survived and is currently responding to treatment.”
About 100 people were injured.
The Somali terrorist group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for the killings.
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi
May the Soul of the Professor rest in peace. He was a very nice man.
Dzogbese Lisa has treated me thus
It has led me among the sharps of the forest
Returning is not possible
And going forward is a great difficulty
The affairs of this world are like the chameleon faeces
Into which I have stepped
When I clean it cannot go.
I am on the world’s extreme corner,
I am not sitting in the row with the eminent
But those who are lucky
Sit in the middle and forget
I am on the world’s extreme corner
I can only go beyond and forget.
My people, I have been somewhere
If I turn here, the rain beats me
If I turn there the sun burns me
The firewood of this world
Is for only those who can take heart
That is why not all can gather it.
The world is not good for anybody
But you are so happy with your fate;
Alas! the travelers are back
All covered with debt.
Something has happened to me
The things so great that I cannot weep;
I have no sons to fire the gun when I die
And no daughter to wail when I close my mouth
I have wandered on the wilderness
The great wilderness men call life
The rain has beaten me,
And the sharp stumps cut as keen as knives
I shall go beyond and rest.
I have no kin and no brother,
Death has made war upon our house;
And Kpeti’s great household is no more,
Only the broken fence stands;
And those who dared not look in his face
Have come out as men.
How well their pride is with them.
Let those gone before take note
They have treated their offspring badly.
What is the wailing for?
Somebody is dead. Agosu himself
Alas! a snake has bitten me
My right arm is broken,
And the tree on which I lean is fallen.
Agosi if you go tell them,
Tell Nyidevu, Kpeti, and Kove
That they have done us evil;
Tell them their house is falling
And the trees in the fence
Have been eaten by termites;
That the martels curse them.
Ask them why they idle there
While we suffer, and eat sand.
And the crow and the vulture
Hover always above our broken fences
And strangers walk over our portion.
Why the precious ones do not last in this sad world of ours? Prof. rest in peace.
he is the man i believe in.
This Earth, My Brother!
…because of a rat, a brother killed a brother.
Ironically, because of a poets’ confab he lost his life.
Nyidevu; the cow that removes canoes under fishermen, de nyuie.
This earth, my brother indeed!!
May you sleep peacefully in the quiet of night
May your spirits soar like an eagle in flight
May there be an end to your feelings so blue
May the healing hand of God reach out to you.
PROF:
MAY YOUR SOUL REST IN PERFECT PEACE
I can not imagine any rationale for killing this man.
He exuded rationality and tranquility and peace.
He was a person possessing a “Great Soul”, a mahatma.
The world is much much poorer today.