The Food and Agriculture Minister, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has disclosed that his desire to become a politician was borne out of his father’s involvement and legacies in politics.
Speaking in an interview on last Friday’s Personality Profile on Joy News, the Minister recounted how as the favourite son of his father, he was allowed at a tender age to join his father’s political meetings.
This, he said, inspired him to move into politics.
“It [politics] came from my father’s involvement in politics in the 1950s where suddenly hell broke and our home became very public with hundreds of people coming in and out day in and day out with the top brass of politicians coming in at that time to talk to my father…he allowed me as a little boy to sit in front of him in his meeting so that really inspired me,” he stated.
According to him, growing up as a young boy, his father’s life as a traditional chief and a politician tutored him into leadership; stressing that moving into politics was something he knew would happen to him.
“Growing under his tutorship, it was very straight for me. It was very natural that you know, it will happen,” he added.
The Minister also noted that aside from his father’s political life, his cocoa plantation influenced him into agriculture to subsequently own cocoa farms.
“What fascinated me was the fact that he had these trees lined up going long way in regular distances and the trees had formed a canopy and the leaves had fallen and there was carpet on the floor and those days I would run and run under these cocoa trees and I will say to myself when I grow up I would like to be like my father and own such a plantation,” he said.