By Isaac Ato Mensah
\nAbetifi \u2013 9 December, 2019<\/p>\n
Joseph Emmanuel Allotey-Pappoe (JEAP), aged 72, the primus of Institute of Public Relations \u2013 Ghana, was cremated at the Lashibie Funeral home on 6 December.<\/p>\n
The cremation and funeral service of the 72 year old soft spoken teetotaller provided Ghana\u2019s PR practitioners with many useful lessons.<\/p>\n
Ghana’s PR \u201cgurus\u201d were there \u2013 the ladies in their wicked and surreal western-style wigs, but it is all good; their students can now tell the difference.<\/p>\n
My students were also there to support their classmate, Godfre, JEAP’s son.<\/p>\n
Now at least one of my classroom battles has ceased, my students having witnessed some proper protocol at Lashibie for themselves.<\/p>\n
JEAP’s son is my student. He always sits quietly in the corner, watching his colleagues battle me while clearly imbibing the lessons.<\/p>\n
JEAP practised PR as an employee of Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) \u201cfor 37 years\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were poached from the classroom,\u201d he recalled with nostalgia in answer to a question from his PR class of 2006-7 at the School of Information and Communication Studies, University of Ghana Legon.<\/p>\n
When JEAP was a student in the 1970s and \u201880s at the Department of Communication Studies (DOCS), the school offered the post graduate diploma programme, and \u201ccommunications professionals were rare\u201d.<\/p>\n
He handled us with finesse, \u201cYes, it\u2019s in Grunig but you haven\u2019t read it, you haven\u2019t read it,\u201d as he shook his head to show mastery of Professor James E. Grunig’s textbooks.<\/p>\n
Even those who hurriedly brought in a \u201cWikipedia summary\u201d had to cite their reference and then he would smile and pardon them with his trademark remark, \u201cYou are not far from the path of the righteous\u201d.<\/p>\n
His passion was to institute ethics into the practice of PR and jettison \u201cpropaganda\u201d from the practice.<\/p>\n
He admitted Ghana had failed in PR ethics for which reason IPR-Ghana was seeking a parliamentary charter to license practitioners.<\/p>\n
He worked hard with others and made then sitting president John Mahama, an alumnus of DOCS, an Honorary Fellow of IPR-Ghana, all in a bid to bring national attention to PR ethics and regulation.<\/p>\n
But Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cWhat\u2019s in a name?\u201d quote should now be a sharp reminder that our failed institutions will require more than IPR-Ghana certification to restore order.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, the South Africans and Egyptians are far ahead of us,\u201d JEAP who held several positions in the African Public Relations Association, once told his class.<\/p>\n
JEAP bemoaned how the Ga chieftaincy hierarchy will not allow PR scholarship to influence their image. He served the chiefs in an advisory capacity but was not acknowledged as an \u201cexpert prescriber\u201d or \u201cproblem solving facilitator\u201d for his scholarly opinion.<\/p>\n
In 2012, he constituted Major (Rtd) Albert Don-Chebe, and his students Kofi Akpabli, Eric Addae and myself, into JEAP and Associates.<\/p>\n
We did our best but did not win even one contract.<\/p>\n
And as each of us already had our other public and private avocations, we just left JEAP and Associates to fade out.<\/p>\n
The last time I saw JEAP was in June this year, when he quickly entered the Pan African Writers Association (PAWA HOUSE) building; his medical condition had taken a toll on his otherwise youthful frame.<\/p>\n
I prayed for his speedy recovery but I also knew \u201cThere is nothing like death; it is part of life,\u201d as my mentor has succinctly unveiled.<\/p>\n
Thank you too, Lashibie Funeral Homes: you have helped mark out the battle lines on propriety.<\/p>\n
Farewell JEAP: rest in peace. And may the family you have left behind never fail the PR test.<\/p>\n
Aluta continua!<\/p>\n
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Writers and Shakespeares Ghana Limited exist to be a moral and intellectual guide to the best practice of PR and integrated communications around the world, beginning with Ghana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"