Why I was punished to write 'Shortcuts are dangerous’ 3000 times in SHS - Afriyie Akoto

Agric Minister recalls stories from Opoku Ware

Owusu Afriyie speaks on Joy News Personality Profile

I used to run in school - Agric Minister recounts

We all got to serve one or two punishments from our schooling days for when we went against the rules and that was the kind of story of the current Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, when he was in Secondary school, but his has an interesting twist.

Recounting one of those memorable moments from his schooling days, the minister said he had to complete a punishment of writing the words, 'Shortcuts are Dangerous' 3000 times for outsmarting his sports master during a sporting event, reports myjoyonline.com.

He, however, explained that while he was generally a student who went by the books always, that exception with his sports master got him into real trouble.

“The only thing I did which actually defied regulation was every week, we had to go on a long run around the villages of Opoku Ware, Santasi and all those and every time they knew that I would be amongst the last.

“I had this friend of mine who came up with the idea that ‘why are they first and we are always last’. So we decided that we [were] going to cut across.

“So when we came back to school the sports master was very surprised that we came out fourth and fifth so he investigated and found out that we cut corners. You know the punishment?

“We were to write 3000 words ‘shortcuts are dangerous’ overnight. So the whole night we were writing and that was it, I decided I’m not going to break any school rules,” he recalled.

He explained that this happened when he was a Dining Hall prefect in his sixth form, at the Opoku Ware Senior High School, adding that the incident got him into extra trouble with some students because he was known for trying to get them to toe the lines of the school rules always.

“I rather got into trouble with some of the students because when I became a prefect I wanted to make sure everybody complied, I didn’t understand why anybody would want to break the rules,” he added.