From Shoeshine to 'Trotro' Mate: The Ghanaian Police Officer Pursuing a Law Degree; Set to publish 1st Book

• Johnson Adusei-Poku is a Ghanaian police officer and lecturer at the National Police Academy and Training School, Accra
• The man of multiple fields is also a fitness trainer and is set to publish his first book titled, The Myriad Scenes of Life
• Adusei-Poku recently opened up about his humble beginning, education, and yet to be published book

When Johnson Adusei-Poku finally decided on a career path, he had endured extreme financial impediments to achieve his senior high school education.

From a humble beginning, Adusei-Poku was born in Kumasi and grew up in Ofoase Kokoben, one of the most deprived villages in the Ashanti Region of Ghana, where he had an extremely ''turbulent childhood''.

As a child, he was compelled to move to stay with his grandmother in the village after his parents separated and received his junior high school education at L/A JSS Ofoase Kokoben. He later attended Simms Secondary/Commercial in Fawoade, Kumasi, where he studied Business.

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Adusei-Poku recalled he attended senior high school amid poverty and struggled throughout his education because he had to juggle schooling with petty trading.

He told YEN.com.gh that he stayed at home for a year, working as a shoeshine and selling polythene bags to save towards his education. His parents paid his school fees but he had to work for his upkeep, buy books, and transportation to school and back home, he said.

While studying at Simms, he recalled he had to sometimes walk to school due to financial constraints. He grew increasingly frustrated but was determined to change the trajectory for himself. While in senior high school, he started playing football and cultivated a passion for fitness.

The birth of a career

After he completed senior high school in 2004, Adusei-Poku made the bold decision to join the Ghana Police Service although he had no idea how he was going to finance this dream.

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At the time, his main source of livelihood was working as a 'trotro' mate (minibus conductor) with a friend whose uncle had bought him a vehicle to start a transport business.

He chose this path because he could not afford to further his education, and in 2005, he enlisted into the police service. Out of the 36,000 applicants, he was among the 512 people who were called in 2007, but he faced another impediment.

Adusei-Poku had no money for medicals and risked missing out on the one opportunity life had offered him to break the cycle of financial struggle. Determined to join the police service, he sold a machine he was using for business to undergo the required medical examination.

Pursuing higher education

Following his training at Ho in the Volta Region, Ghana, he had a turning point in life as things began to improve. In 2010, life offered him the opportunity to pursue a programme at the University College of Management Studies and obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting between 2010-2014.

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While pursuing his degree, he began to work on his fitness brand, working out every single day with some clients who paid for private sessions and at the gym.

After his first degree, he obtained another degree in Education from the University of Education, Winneba. His quest to gain knowledge urged him to earn his Master of Business Administration (Accounting) from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

In 2017, he took giant steps to become a chartered accountant but failed to excel in the examination at The Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAG).

''I failed some of the papers and so I couldn't graduate,'' he told YEN.com.gh. He couldn’t continue in his hopes of becoming a professional accountant but he turned to another field.

At 38, Adusei-Poku is pursuing a law degree (LLB), combining that with his job as a detective with the Ghana Police Service, where he has been serving since 2017. He doubles as a lecturer at the National Police Training School Accra and has been teaching since 2019 till date.

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Set to publish first book

Now attached to the Ghana Revenue Authority, the man of multiple fields is set to publish his first book titled, The Myriad Scenes of Life.

For young people who share a similar path or aspire to achieve greater than him, ''the book teaches about how to be successful, but not in the conventional sense most people use the word''.

It ''brings to the fore is how to be human, and how to live with the consciousness that your life is worth more than a caterpillar’s (and nothing compared to it), which only lives for a moment and then disappears''.

The Myriad Scenes of Life further urges young people not to waste their careers and life and be impactful and ensure the world would be different because you passed through it.

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Meanwhile, Lois Bailey, a Ghanaian student at the University of Education, Winneba, is making strides in a male-dominated occupation as a female creative painter.

Despite the challenges she has encountered in her young career, she is determined to break barriers and become one of the most loved painters in Ghana.

Some of her clients undermine and underrate her judgment and expertise because of her gender, but she is eager to exceed expectations for herself.

Source: YEN.com.gh