Tribute to Samuel Enin

TRIBUTE SAMUEL ENIN, 15 YEARS OF DEVOTED JOURNALISTIC CAREER

Doing obituary (tribute) for a loved one is not a fun. It is always a heart-aching undertaking. And the task becomes much more agonizing when the person died unexpectedly, and horrifically, in the manner my classmate, crony and colleague, Samuel Enin, was murdered.

Since Enin’s cold-blooded slaying last February my mind has been wandering through his professional life (and sometimes personal) to see if he might have done anything on the line of duty that could make anybody took his life.

In fact, as I sit in front of my laptop tapping away this unforgettable goodbye to Enin I am still struggling with two questions. Was he assassinated for a story that he filed? Or his death was accidental?

All over the world - journalists pay unspeakable price - in the pursuit of their profession. Last year about 150 journalists were killed, according to International Federation of Journalists.

We clearly have our share of lurid abuses. But one thing is readily evident in Ghana. Our newsmen and women have been saved job-related killings.

Not even in some of our nation’s blood-stained eras did we see any journalist slain. But the world is changing; information technology is even knocking on the door of hermits.

To borrow The New York Times’ Tom Friedman the world is flattening. And the flat world is bringing in its trail all sorts of forces and influences.

This makes it tempting to suspect that, at last, somebody is trying to introduce a global template in Ghana especially with Enin’s murder coming in the heels of high-profile killings of Russian journalist/Kremlin critic, Anna Politkovskaya, and Turkish-Armenian editor, Hrant Dink.

But whatever was the motive of his killers Enin’s murder would continue to tantalize our country even long after his murderers have been arrested.

In fact, I felt assured about police investigations as soon as I learned that both the interior minister, Mr Albert Kan Dapaah, and the IGP, Mr Patrick Kwasi Acheampong, attended the ‘one week’ gathering of Enin’s family at South (Suntreso) in Kumasi. I’m sure my good friend, Kan, and Mr Acheampong, did not just put up a face at South but rather they were there to send a signal to the criminals that they could run but they couldn’t hide.

Like me Enin was a Tuesday born. I discovered this within days we arrived at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) in 1989 and had since then always called Enin by his day name, Kwabena.

He was the youngest of a group of five students from Kumasi who entered GIJ in 1989; a group that included Akwasi Ampratwum-Mensah of Daily Graphic, Winston Tamakloe of Ghanaian Times, Osei Owusu who is currently in Chicago, USA, and myself.

His was a life full of fun and humor. He was a natural showman. Early on at GIJ at a time we had hardly settled into our journalism program Enin nagged his close circle of friends with C.P. Scott’s famous caveat to the writing world: “Facts are sacred, opinion is free.”

He called his sweetheart Monica ‘Best.’ And he his marriage to Best became a staple story in some newspaper offices in Kumasi.

Enin was someone who would toast both his successes and failures. He was killed, I understand, while making good of a promise he had made all week to some of his ASHH FM colleagues to entertain them at his regular Friday evening hangout.

He did his national service at GNA office in Wa and he used to celebrate his Wa boss a Mollar (also deceased I’m told) as a great grammarian. It is likely for even a jaded observer meeting Enin for first time to laugh him off as carefree and comical. But underneath that frolicsome persona was a very thoughtful, curious and ambitious professional. He was SRC secretary at GIJ. And before assuming the chairmanship of the Ashanti Chapter of GJA served as secretary of the chapter during the administration of Mr Nehemia Owusu-Achiaw, now Graphic correspondent at Castle; I was Mr Owusu-Achiaw’s vice Enin had always harboured an ambition to represent his home constituency (Odotobri) in parliament. I believe if he had not been untimely and cruelly slaughtered he would have one day translated that dream into reality. If I’m asked one thing I find admirable about Kwabena I would say it was his strong bond with his home village of Jacobu and its people. Enin grew up in Kumasi. But unlike some so-called urbanites of his generation who sometimes pretend as if they have no rural connection, Kwabena treasured his origin. In fact, if there was anything that lubricated Enin and my camaraderie it was our love for our home villages. Kwabena and my career paths intersected twice. First, at Voice and later, at ASHH FM, where until his death he was the news editor.

In between Voice and ASHH FM, he reported for Free Press from Kumasi and it was at the Free Press that he won a national prize for Best Environmental Journalist.

At Voice, he did a column called Heavenly Thoughts. Raised by Adventist parents, Enin was well-grounded in the scriptures. He kept the Sabbath but he was a liberal Adventist who felt the Sabbath was made for man and not the other way round.

But all said and done Samuel Kwabena Enin was a devoted journalist and a dutiful Christian.