It may seem rather odd that you pay tribute to someone you never met personally but I would like to remember the memory of Kofi Ghanaba , the divine drummer for a small parcel he sent me in the seventies when I was a young sportswriter with the Daily Graphic newspaper.

I assume that Kofi Ghanaba loved football, for he had read my report on a controversial international football match between the Black Stars and Togo in Lome which ended in confusion with Ghana’s ace right winger Yaw Sam brutally molested by Togolese gendarmes. The Daily Graphic chief photographer E.K.Agyakwa captured Yaw Sam’s dramatic chase around the pitch by a Togolese security man with a horse whip in hand. This together with my vivid report obviously tickled Kofi Ghanaba and he sent two autographed copies of his autobiography ”I HAVE A STORY TO TELL” and also two copies of his music albums to the two of us. The autograph in my copy of the book read “To Ken Bediako, my favourite sports writer on the Daily Graphic”. Oh I was so excited to receive such a commendation from such a famous international personality.

A quick glance through the book depicted a very strong attack on Kofi Ghanaba’s late father Teacher Akwei, described as an irresponsible man who would go to bed with anything in skirts. Kofi alluded that his mother then a teenager was defiled by Teacher Akwei and the only consolation was that he inherited his mother’s beautiful nose.

Having been puzzled by the contents of the book, I rushed home early that day to listen to the songs in the treasured album presented to me. To my consternation all I could hear was some strange sounds like the ruffling of trees in a forest. I fiddled with the sound system for nearly 15 minutes thinking there must be some fault with the stylus. The following day, I gave the album to a friend then working at Radio Ghana to sort things out on GBC’s powerful machines and his verdict was that there was nothing wrong with my sounds system and that what seemed strange to me was Kofi Ghanaba’s rendition of the sounds of whistling ants. I laughed my heart out and it was from that moment that I accepted the general notion that Kofi Ghanaba was an enigma and you needed a sixth sense to appreciate certain types of his music. I am still keeping that album for posterity.

May his soul rest in perfect peace