A collapsed galamsey pit could have killed politician Nii Lante Vanderpuye when he was working to pay his senior high school fees. He was the only one to walk out of the accident that killed six, and left a seventh in a wheelchair. Since then the minister has been using his fortitude in life to help others.
A python in a galamsey pit almost killed Minister of Youth and Sports designate Nii Lante Vanderpuye. The Odododiodoo MP explains how his life changed since he escaped death.
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The former sports journalist is due to take office this month as Ghana's newest minister of Youth and Sports.
His appointment was announced after a ministerial reshuffle in January. He takes over from Dr Mustapha Ahmed.
Speaking to an Afri-One youth event in Accra, Vanderpuye, who is the MP for Odododiodoo, shared his life story with an audience of young entrepreneurs, university students, fellow politicians and business people.
Growing up in a large family on Zongo Lane in Accra, he said education wasn't considered important, but with the odds against him, he persevered through school.
“When you are the son of a bus conductor and a bus conductress and you are the seventh of children from two wives, six ahead of you, none of them were taking school serious.”
Vanderpuye would go to school in tattered clothing, after having to scrub the bathhouse and clean the cooking utensils. His siblings went on ahead of him.
“I was always late to school and I was always being whipped but I was always determined to make it,” he said.
“All those ahead of me never went beyond form four. In a family of 13 I am the only person who went beyond form four to secondary school. None of my siblings have entered a secondary school classroom. Those ahead of me and those behind me.”
He puts his success down to his dedication, and his late mother's support. She used to tell him, “if I have to sell my last cloth to make you somebody I will do it,” which propelled him on, and still does.
He told the Afri-One audience he got a scholarship to go to secondary school, he had taken up boxing by then. However, one day he used his boxing skills to fight back when a bully picked on him. The bully reported on Vanderpuye who was then suspended, and his scholarship was withdrawn.
Too scared to fess up to his father, Vanderpuye worked to pay his own fees, from weeding farms to carrying coco.
“On vacation I would travel to Tarkwa to do galamsey. I remember the day, I will always thank God for that. We were eight in the pit. When we entered the pit, we met a python. In our struggles the pit collapsed and six died instantly, the other one up to today sits in a wheelchair and anytime I go to Tarkwa I go to visit him and try to support him.”
He also spent his short school vacation evenings selling kebabs at the Metropole Hotel, a popular spot in Accra. While selling the kebabs, Vanderpuye would be reading his books.
This is what got him into the University of Ghana, he says.
His early struggles to get the education he wanted has influenced him to pay it forward, especially to those in his constituency Odododiodoo.
He said any young boy or girl who wants to continue education after senior high school “hasn't got a problem.
“Between 2013 when I became MP to today, we have been able to support people through education. Some of them are now perusing their master degrees as I talk today there are six girls one of them is in their final year at medical school - the father is a fisherman who has never been to school before.”
“We have spent close to 430,000 cedi on scholarships for young girls and boys, not because I have it but because I am determined that that is the way to go. I got that opportunity to be supported by my late mother.”
Now, expecting to take office this month as the new Minister for Sport and Youth, Vanderpuye said “I see my position not for me, I have been blessed with this position to be a blessing on to others.”
He spoke about slums in Accra, that “fester criminals. The guy who killed the MP, where was he arrested?” He asked, telling the audience it was Old Fadama, an area with between 80, to 100, 000 residents, 40 per cent of them being youth.
“You walk there and you see the children, 20, 30 children walking naked, with phlegm coming out of their noses, dirty. We can see some of them and we can tell that these children for two days now have not had any bath.”
Vanderpuye urged those in the audience to use their positions for good.
“Everyday as a human-being and a Ghanaian I feel indicted as a leader that we will continue to allow people to live in such deprivation and squalor. That is what always inspires me and motivates me, that I am still there because I have a job to do to make sure people are not forced to live that life.”
“If we don't do something for these people, tomorrow they are the people who will pick arms and come to your houses and attack you, so whether we like it or not they are our problem and our headache today. The only security for us is that those people have lived a life better than what they are living today. If we don't do that we don't have security.”
“Build the future that will also give us the opportunity to change the lives of those people.”
He pledged to support the Afri-One group to empower young people in Ghana.
As the Minister for Youth, Vanderpuye vowed to revive youth organisations in Ghana, including Boy Scouts, Girl Guides and YMCA.
“We will reach out to the young ones coming up [teach them] the real values of African people, of Ghanaian society and we will build our spirits from that. When a person becomes convinced in their mind that what he is doing is to help him build himself and this nation, the person is less liable to be corrupt whenever he finds himself in a position of power.”