Prez Akufo-Addo cuts sod for construction of monument for late Kofi Annan

A 20-foot monument of the late Kofi Annan will in six months stand at the entrance of the Kofi Annan Peace Keeping Training Center (KAIPC) to honour the former UN Secretary General.

The statue which will be erected on a two-foot pedestal will portray the subject of a gentle and simple personality who promoted world peace, Joy News’ Latif Iddrisu has reported.

Speaking at the sod-cutting ceremony at the entrance of KAIPC, President Akufo-Addo said the monument could also be a medium through which his wife, Nane Maria Annan, communicates with her late husband.

“I have the honour of cutting the sod today in honour of one of the most illustrious of our compatriots. There is not too much of the life of Kofi Annan that has not been said.

“But for me what I see and what I remember is the man of principle, a man who valued important concepts in life, and who lived his life according to those values

“Very few of us can claim that but he did that.  And that is the reason why a grateful posterity has found it necessary to honour him,” Akufo-Addo said.

Responding to the gesture, wife of the late statesman, said the family is grateful for the gesture.

“I and the family want to thank all of you who have supported us and embraced us on during the difficult moment We have to continue to work in his spirit,” Nane Maria Annan said.
Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan died in 2018. He was 80.

The Ghanaian died at a hospital in Switzerland after a short illness.

Mr Annan served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1997 to December 2006.

Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He is the founder and chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as chairman of The Elders, an international organization founded by Nelson Mandela.

Annan was born in Kumasi, Annan went on to study economics at Macalester College, international relations from the Graduate Institute Geneva and management at MIT. He joined the UN in 1962, working for the World Health Organization's Geneva office.

He then went on to work in several capacities at the UN Headquarters including serving as the Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping between March 1992 and December 1996.

Annan was appointed as the Secretary-General on 13 December 1996 by the Security Council and later confirmed by the General Assembly, making him the first officeholder to be elected from the UN staff itself.

He was re-elected for a second term in 2001 and was succeeded as Secretary-General by Ban Ki-moon on 1 January 2007.

As the Secretary-General, Annan reformed the UN bureaucracy; worked to combat HIV, especially in Africa; and launched the UN Global Compact.

He has been criticized for not expanding the Security Council and faced calls for resignation after an investigation into the Oil-for-Food Programme.

After leaving the UN, he founded the Kofi Annan Foundation in 2007 to work on international development. In 2012, Annan was the UN–Arab League Joint Special Representative for Syria, to help find a resolution to the ongoing conflict there.