THE President listens to him every week-day while having breakfast. He
has no choice. This man is the first person to greet the nation’s Chief
Executive Officer every morning – ‘Good Morning, Mr President.’

Drunken Koofori is a real bother to Mr President. The President doesn’t like the idea of a heavily drunk wag advising him every morning on official policy ranging from an alleged corrupt police service to foreign affairs.

Drunken as he may sound, Koofori never takes a drop of alcohol. Never! Whenever he stars in the popular screen drama ‘Efiewura’ as the drunken and womanising husband of a dutiful and faithful wife, he plays the role naturally without taking in any alcoholic beverage. This heavily contradicts the opinion many have of him as a notorious drunkard. How come?

"When I was about ten or eleven," he told Spectator on Wednesday, "there was this alcoholic called Nyaba who was a Forestry watchman at Oda. He hailed from northern Ghana and when drunk, he drawled and walked past my home in a drunken swagger. Out of mischief, I started imitating the way he walked and spoke. I would follow him and do it exactly as he did and this man would turn to throw stones at me."

Koofori said when the man did not pass by any particular day, he took it as an opportunity to deputise for him. He would entertain those around by simulating drunken Nyaba. With time, he could perfectly act as a drunken man without taking a drop of alcohol.

And where from the name ‘Koofori’? He was born Samuel Seth Kwabena Kyere at Akim Oda and attended Abetifi Presby Primary School. He continued at Oxford Preparatory School, Mpraeso and Oda Attafuah JSS in 1983.

He later attended Akwatia Technical Institute in 1986 and had a one-year stint at St Pauls Technical in 1987, before winding up at Takoradi Polytechnic. At Akwatia, he was the dining hall prefect and School Choir leader. He was also the vice-president of the Scripture Union (SU).

After school, he studied videography and helped a friend to shoot video clips of weddings and other events. It was when he was shooting the engagement of somebody that he met his wife for the first time. He had a crush on her and never looked back since then.

At Radio Gold where there was a programme called ‘Ahenfie’, someone was asked to play a drunken man in the ‘palace’ but he failed to perform to perfection. Koofori offered to teach him how to play a drunken man and instantly, the producer of the programme said he was rather the right man for the part.

Incidentally, he played a man called ‘Koofori’ in ‘Ahenfie’ so the name later stuck to him like a leech, never to be removed to this very day.

SPEC: Do you drink alcohol?

KOO: I never drink alcohol. It is something I don’t like. Come to my house and you’ll find all sorts of drinks from gin to whisky, Playboy to Pusher which producers and friends give me. They are all there. You can visit me and see things for yourself.

SPEC: Are you saying you don’t drink anything before performing on set?

KOO: I go on to set clear-eyed.

SPEC: You said you met your wife when shooting video. Did she pursue you or you did?

KOO: I have never liked women who give men scholarship. I want to go after the woman I love, not the woman coming after me. I chatted her up when she was asked to serve the video-cameraman at the engagement who happened to be me. But it took eight whole months for her to agree to my proposal. You know her parents were very strict.

SPEC: You say you don’t enjoy scholarship from women. Has any of your love proposals ever been rejected by a woman?

KOO (jokingly): I have never failed in any of my exams before. I am a perfectionist.

SPEC: You befriended your wife after the eight months. When did you get married?

KOO: We dated for 10 whole years, before we settled