What can I say for the honour done me to come before you and speak to the topic and about ‘The Man John Evans Atta Mills – Ten Years On.’ May His Gentle Soul Rest in Peace. There is no better time when the values, principles, and the ideas that shaped and guided late Professor J. E. A Mills as an academic, bureaucrat, politician, and statesman, culminated in occupying the exalted office of President and Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) is more needed now than at any stage in Ghana’s socio-economic and political life.

Nana Chair, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, the conversation this afternoon is not just about reminiscing about our late President; No. My argument is that JEA Mills embodied unique values

and principles, which he brought into public life and which in 2008 started as a campaign catchphrase, ‘Asomdwee Hene,’ but which subsequently came to characterise the person we eulogise today. This person and his approach to politics, governance, and the law reflected and underpinned his understanding of, application, and usage of these principles inherent in different aspects of governance and the law.

For the purposes of today’s presentation, I begin by presenting a discursive examination of this corpus of statements and, by extension, an assessment of how these can and ought to be applied in praxis. Here, the application of these approaches will be limited to security governance and how the law must, under all circumstances, undergird how security is conceived and practised.

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Prof Kwesi Aning is the Director, Faculty of Academic Affairs & Research, Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC).