Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.
She is arguably Ghana’s most famous English-language poet, playwright, essayist, novelist and educator. She is also one of the first of the then very few women to have graduated from the country’s flagship academy, the University of Ghana. Then also her brief flirtation with Ghanaian politics witnessed her being named to the crucial portfolio of Education Minister.
And so Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo is not a personality who needs an introduction anywhere in Ghana. Which is why it came as a great surprise to me that of all venues for the celebration of womanhood, the staff and/or faculty of the University of Ghana’s Center for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA) would have this remarkable writer’s middle name of “Ata” misspelled as “Atta” (See “Ama Ata Aidoo Walks Out of Event Over Spelling Error” 3News.com / Ghanaweb.com 8/3/16).
My own late mother was a twin, which was why I was fond of calling the late President John Evans Atta-Mills “My good, old Uncle Tarkwa-Atta.” Most Akans spell the name for male twins “Atta,” while for females the spelling is “Attaa,” with a prolonged “a” sound to signify the femininity of the latter designation.
I discovered through my research that Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo is also a twin; but like that other globally renowned and distinguished personality, Mr. Kofi Annan, who is also the current Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Prof. Aidoo’s twin sibling is a man, just as Mr. Annan has a sororal complement or twin sister. Which was why I was a bit puzzled when I first came across the middle name “Ata” of Ama Ata Aidoo. That must have been in the late 1970s.
What equally fascinated me was the poetic rhythm and the staccato syllabication of the entire name, which forces anybody who comes across it to say or mention all three names in one breath, “Ama Ata Aidoo.” It clearly sounds awkward to say “Ama ‘Aidoo’” – the faux-Anglicized Fante version of the common Akan name of “Adu,” “It has arrived” – and hope that any reasonably well educated or literate Ghanaian would readily catch onto the identity of the person being referenced.
Many people would, however, readily recognize the identity of “Ama Ata,” if they happen to be cultural mavens or connoisseurs or specialists and good students of African Literature.
I have, myself, written quite a bit about her work, including an academic conference paper and a brief paragraph or two in my doctoral dissertation, although I do not consider Ama Ata Aidoo to be on par with such global African literary giants as Chinua Achebe, my African Literature professor at City College of the City University of New York; Prof. Wole Soyinka, unarguably the foremost continental African playwright; and the fine novelist and fiery political thinker, essayist and critic, Prof. Ngugi wa Thiong’O. but she still has a respectable place on the shelf of the continental African literary canon.
Anyway, what inspired this column was the news report that at the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the Legon Center for Gender Studies and Advocacy, held with a literary contest in her name, Prof. Aidoo had been compelled to walk out on the program, out of fury, because the award-winning writer felt grossly disrespected when she discovered that her middle name of “Ata” had been misspelled as “Atta.”
As of this writing, critics and commentators were still debating whether such academic sloppiness on the part of the faculty and staff of CEGENSA, hosts of the program, ought to have been forgiven by Ms. Aidoo with good humor or in jest.
Naturally, other critics and commentators were of the view that it was about time a personality with the remarkable stature of Prof. Aidoo stood firm and sent a significant signal that academic mediocrity ought not be countenanced or accepted anywhere in Ghanaian academic corridors, least of all among the dons and scholars and intellectuals of the University of Ghana, an institution originally modeled after the University of London, of which Ms. Aidoo is also an alumna.
For me, though, the decision to walk out of the 10 Anniversary Celebration of the Women’s Studies Program – which is really what CEGENSA is – was entirely her inalienable right.
What is more, at the mature and grandmotherly age of 74 or 76, depending on who is doing the reckoning, Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo has every right not to put up with whatever she personally deems to be thoroughly inexcusable under any circumstances or simply insufferable.