Ghana Armed Forces honours late Defence Minister Omane Boamah at first memorial lecture

The Ghana Armed Forces has held the first annual memorial public lecture in honour of late Defence Minister Dr Edward Kofi Omane Boamah at Burma Camp in Accra.

Dr Omane Boamah and seven other public officials died in a military helicopter crash at Adansi Akrofuom in Ghana’s Ashanti Region on 6 August 2025 while carrying out a national assignment.

The memorial event, held on Tuesday, was attended by Vice-President Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, Dr Julius Debrah, Chief of Staff at the Presidency, and Dr Cassiel Ato Baah Forson, the Finance Minister and Acting Defence Minister.

Service chiefs were also present, alongside former students of Pope John Senior High School and Junior Seminary in Koforidua, where Dr Omane Boamah was educated.

The lecture was chaired by Nana Dr Emmanuel Adu-Sarkodee, President of the Ghana Employers’ Association and Akwamu Manwerehene.

Two speakers addressed the inaugural event. Reverend Father Dr Ebenezer Akesseh, Parish Priest of Christ the King Parish of the Catholic Church in Accra, delivered a lecture titled “Selfless Leadership in Public Service: Lessons from the Life and Legacy of the late Dr Omane Boamah”.

Professor Kwasi Appeaning Addo, a former Director of the Institute of Environment and Sanitation Studies in the Department of Marine and Fisheries Science at the University of Ghana, gave the second presentation, “Accra Beyond the Floods: Rethinking Enforcement, Urban Planning and Community Resilience”.

Tribute to a servant leader

Rev. Dr Akesseh described public service as a vocation and divine calling to serve humanity, rather than a profession undertaken for personal benefit.

He said Dr Omane Boamah represented the principles of servant leadership by using his talents, medical expertise and political career in the service of Ghana. According to Rev. Dr Akesseh, the former minister consistently put the interests of others before his own.

He recalled an occasion when Dr Omane Boamah stopped during a journey to help a woman in distress and ensured she received urgent medical attention. The incident, he said, showed that compassion had to be matched by practical action.

Rev. Dr Akesseh added that Dr Omane Boamah understood leadership as a moral responsibility based on integrity, humility and accountability. During his career, he said, the late minister gained the confidence of colleagues and the public by being transparent, rejecting corruption and placing the national interest ahead of personal or political advantage.

Call for a flood-resilient Accra

Professor Addo used his presentation to call for action on the “Accra Beyond the Floods Equation”. He said the late Defence Minister’s legacy could be honoured by creating a climate-resilient capital through a combination of disciplined urban planning and progressive engineering.

He argued that this approach could protect Accra from flooding while building on the city’s early foundational work, including national environmental investigations and tree-planting campaigns. The broader aim, he said, should be to move Accra away from reactive crisis management and towards becoming a highly regulated and sustainable city.

Professor Addo said an effective flood-resilience strategy should combine natural infrastructure, artificial intelligence-driven enforcement and action led by communities.

He stressed that turning Ghana’s flood-prone capital into a climate-resilient city would not be possible through isolated interventions. Instead, he called for policy, tradition, advocacy and civic responsibility to work together to protect Accra’s future.

“The mandate for each stakeholder group is clear and immediate. To our policy makers, please lead with courage and integrity and enforce without fear or favor. Utilise the digital planning and GIS mapping to permanently lock out unauthorized construction in our towers,” he said.

He urged traditional leaders to act as strong custodians of their lands by refusing the sale of wetlands and flood plains to developers. He also called on them to promote social accountability and ensure ecological zoning laws were respected at local level.

Civil society organisations and the media, Professor Addo said, should promote truth and equity while maintaining continuous independent oversight of the prosecution of corrupt planning officials. He also encouraged them to keep climate adaptation and waste management at the centre of public education and debate.

“To our citizens, stop the practice of damping solid and plastic waste into their dreams. Take active charge of your neighborhood’s cleanliness,” he said, calling on residents to volunteer for community-led early-warning and disaster-response teams and to reject the purchase of land in flood plains.

He further appealed to citizens to report illegal developments that threatened the safety of their communities, saying collective action was essential.

Professor Addo concluded: “either we continue down the path of a chaotic expansion and recurrent disaster, or we can choose the path of structural discipline, environmental harmony and systemic progress,” while urging all stakeholders to work together to build a proud order.