Dear brothers and sisters, fellow village men and women, youth of Bongo. Please sit down. I still have the floor. Yes, I know you were not expecting to hear or read from me again since those fateful early hours of February 23rd, when I drew my last breath. The morning after, I became known as “the body”, “the corpse”, “the remains”, “kum”, or simply “the late DCE.” So if you did not expect to read from me, it is entirely understandable. But they only froze my body. Not my voice. My body rests. My words do not. I am free at last, but not done yet. I refuse to be colonized by death. Look for me in the whirlwind, Bongo. I am still here.
To many of you, February 23rd was a cruel, devastating, dark day in Bongo. To some, it was a reminder that positions are temporary and turns will come for all. And to others, it was a quiet whisper that this life we live here is a temporal journey, a passage, not a destination. And yet to others, I got what I deserved: death! However you viewed it is immaterial now. But for me, it was the day I completed my mission on earth and returned solemnly to my Maker. The Bible says in Psalm 116:15, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servants.” I hold on to that. Nothing more, nothing less.
My long walk on earth is over. But where I stand now, the view is perfect, the signal is strong, and I have a few remaining things left to say, before April 11, 2026, when my remains, now resting at the freezing morgue, will finally be committed to the earth from where they were made.
First, to my beautiful and lovely wife, Mama Fausty.
You stood beside me when the applause was loud and stayed beside me when the room went quiet. You were never behind me. You were always with me. You gave more in silence to this community than any report will ever record. You carried this family with a grace that even I, in my best moments, could not fully repay. The Book of Proverbs says, “A wife of noble character, who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.” That was you. That has always been you. I see you, my love. I always did. Not even this moment shall do us apart. It is a promise from me to you, my love. I know it will not be easy, but I trust the Lord to be your strength and your support as you carry the weight of being both mother and father to our children.
My lovely children, you are my greatest constituency.
I served Bongo, but I served for you. Every meeting I attended, every bridge I fought for, every night I came home late, it was always with you in mind. The world will try to define you by my absence. Do not let it. You are not the children of a dead man. You are the children of a man who lived, fully, purposefully, for something greater than himself. Do not live in perpetual regret. As the Akan say, “the good tree is cut down and carried away, but its shade remains.” Though I may be gone from your sight, you are covered with the shade of my service. Remember this always: a good name is more desirable than great riches. I may not leave you a vast estate, but I leave you a name built on service, sacrifice, volunteerism, and sincerity. Guard it. Grow it. Stand tall. The name you carry is not a burden. It did not die with me. It is a blueprint.
As the elders of our land wisely say, “a child does not belong to one house alone; when the father falls, the whole community becomes his walking stick.” My people across Bongo, be that walking stick and embrace my children. Let them feel the warmth of the village their father gave his life to serve. Please, do not call them the children of a dead man.
To His Excellency, President John Dramani Mahama.
Mr. President, I served under your vision and reset agenda with pride and with purpose. I believed in what we set out to do for this country and for Bongo. I did not always get it right, but my loyalty to the people and to your reset agenda was never in question. I thank you for the trust you placed in me to serve my people. I ask that Bongo continues to receive the attention it deserves, not because of who I was, but because of who the people are. They deserve it. They have always deserved it.
To our motherland, Bongo.
My beloved Bongo. You think I have left? I am in every dusty road we promised to fix. I am in every classroom we said we would build. I am seated at every river we planned to bridge. I am in every young person who still believes this district deserves better. The work is not finished. It was never meant to be finished by one man. I was a chapter, not the whole book. The chapter may be done, but the book is still voluminous. Do not close it. Turn the next page.
As your DCE, I did not just occupy a seat. Despite my visible and invisible weaknesses, just like any other mortal being, I tried to be a bridge between the people and the promise of our government. Some days I succeeded. Some days the system was heavier than my shoulders. Some days I leaned on the wisdom of our elders. Some days I simply trusted the Lord. But I never stopped learning and believing that Bongo deserved development, dignity, and a voice at the table. As African wisdom reminds us, “a tree is known by its fruit.” Judge me then, not by how I died, but by what my life tried to grow in Bongo. The elders say, “rain does not fall on one roof alone.” I may not have led you to the promised land, but development, when it comes, must touch every compound, every community, every forgotten corner of this district. That was my prayer then. Let it be your mandate now.
To my NDC Comrades.
We did not build this party with our mouths. We built it with our feet, our tenacity, and our sweat, walking from house to house, branch to branch. The party is only as strong as the unity of the people who carry it. Guard that unity like your life depends on it, because for many in this community, it does. Do not let my seat become a source of division. Let it become a symbol of continuity, a chapter better written than the one I inherited. For as Chinua Achebe warned us, “when brothers fight to the death, a stranger inherits their father’s estate.” We have fought too hard, walked too far, and bled too much for this party and this constituency to hand it over to “strangers” through our own quarrels. Unity is not optional. It is survival. Whoever steps into these shoes, let them step in with humility, because as the elders wisely counsel, “he who thinks he leads and has no one following him is only taking a walk.” Leadership is service. It is not a throne. It is a towel. It is a collective effort. As the Ewe folk say, “one hand does not catch a buffalo.” Come together, all of you, to fight the common enemies of our district: poverty, illiteracy, climate change, teenage pregnancy, and disease burden.
To my political allies and opponents.
Even though you stood on the other side of the ballot in our intra and inter-party politics, hear me well: death has a way of reminding us that we are all on the same side in the end. We are all children of this land. We all want the same thing for our families and our communities. The political seasons will always come and go, but Bongo remains. Let us not allow the contest of politics to become the destruction of community and families. As the elders say, “the axe forgets, but the tree remembers.” Let us be mindful of the wounds we inflict in the name of power, for the scars remain long after the politics are forgotten. I hold no grudges. I leave with none. I ask you to do the same. Bongo belongs to all of us. Let us all build it together.
To all who are mourning my passing.
I say to you: grief is love with nowhere to go. Send it somewhere. Send it into action. Send it into the next generation. Send it into the meeting rooms, the community durbars, the polling stations, and the classrooms. That is where I will be waiting. The Bible reminds us in Ecclesiastes, “There is a time for everything. A time to be born and a time to die.” My time came. But purpose does not die on schedule. And the elders say, “when a great tree falls, the ground shakes, but the forest does not end.” Bongo, you are the forest. Shake, then grow. All that remains for me to rest in peace is that I lie in my grave knowing that Bongo, the only place I have ever truly called home, grows and shines in unity. There is no other Bongo. There will never be another Bongo. Protect it like the treasure it is.
A final word to the living.
Life is short, but legacy is long. Be kind while you can. Serve while you have the strength. Love loudly and without condition. The graveside is no place for regrets. It is a place for reckoning. Ask yourself daily: if it were me in that casket, what would remain of my name? As the great Marcus Aurelius once wrote, “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” I lived. Imperfectly, but fully. I hope you will too. I am not asking you to move on. As the Akan say, “the path does not close because one traveler has fallen.” I am asking you to move forward.
Your DCE has spoken. Last! Final! Bongo, the floor is yours now.
Till we meet again, your humble servant, speaking to you from the other side.
Written By Luke A. Atazona
Rest in Power, my brother, Joe. Your legacy is not behind us. It is ahead of us.
