I am not scared of death - Meet 99 year old Charles Baako Kweku Nyatsui Moses

99 Years of Living Well: A Conversation with Charles Baako Kweku Nyatsui Moses

He was born in Salt Pond in 1926. His father was the first African Director of Prisons in Ghana. His mother sold fish at the seaside. At seven his grandmother came and took him to Accra. He played football at Mabona in Jamestown as a boy. He felt the ground shake under his feet during the 1939 earthquake. He was a schoolboy when he marched at the Old Parliament House on 6th March 1957. He waited until 27 to sleep with a woman, and that woman was the only one he ever had. He planted cocoa and plantain and coconut while teaching evening classes and preaching from village to village with a lamp and a bell at nine o'clock at night. He founded evening classes, helped establish a Baptist church, built a juice business from the oranges on his own farm, became the General Overseer of The Holy Church of God, and now at 99 years old — a few months from his 100th birthday on 11th August 2026 — he is still walking, still sharp, still receiving visits from his wife in his dreams.

The Secret of Living Long

He is asked the question directly and he gives it without hesitation. The first thing his father ever told him was to respect every person who comes his way — man or woman, tall or short, young or old. He quotes Exodus 20:12 without being prompted: honor your father and mother, that your days on earth may be prolonged. He has expanded this through his own life to mean any human being, not just biological parents. That principle, he says, has guided everything.

The second thing is that he did not sleep with a woman until he was 27. He says it plainly and unapologetically. He was busy teaching children. He had no intention of having girls here and there while he had work to do. His father told him you must be prepared to feed a woman before you bring one in — in the same way you would not hire a worker without money to pay them. When the time came to marry, he married. The person he married was the only person he was ever with. She left him at the age of 84. He has not remarried.

No alcohol — or virtually none. He tells the story of his younger brother who worked at UTC in Kumasi and used to give him wine when he visited. The wine was so sweet he would drink it happily, then walk out, and by the time he reached the tall trees at the circle on the road home, he would be drunk and have to lean against a tree to recover — school books on his shoulder, school teacher leaning on a tree in the afternoon. One day his brother came and found him there. After that, no more wine.

No stress. He does not carry things. He eats everything — kenkey and fish yesterday, brought by his daughter-in-law. He rests. He sleeps on his pillow when he can. And he has faith — a faith that is not abstract but immediate and conversational, a faith in which God speaks to him as clearly as a person sitting in the same room.

Meeting His Wife

He was teaching at Konongo Royal School when the CPP came and invited him and others to go and teach in the villages. They took him to a village called Buaan. That is where he met her.

She was 18. He was 27. He cannot fully describe what attracted him except to say she was beautiful by any standard, and that what he noticed most was her composure. He told her on the first meeting that he wanted to marry her. She smiled and said she would think about it. He was not worried. The smile told him he had a chance.

The story of how the marriage was confirmed is a marvel of coincidence and inheritance. His father, who had come from Accra to look for him in Kumasi and then drove to the village on a market day Friday, happened to ask a woman selling chips where the teacher who lived in such-and-such house was staying. The woman gossiped freely: that teacher is making jolly jolly with the girl in that house over there. His father found the house. He found the father of the girl. And then he discovered that the father of the girl had gone to West Boya School in Kumasi at the same time as him. The two of them had been childhood friends and schoolmates. They had separately gone on to build houses in Amokrom. In fact, his father and his wife's father had built a house together. Two old friends reunited at the doorstep of the very woman their son wanted to marry. His father's approval was given on the spot.

The marriage rites were performed one Friday. His father's daughter Auntie Vic, who is also around 100 years old and still alive, came with others to Buaan to complete the customary requirements — wine, cloth, the traditional items. And the two families, already connected by friendship and construction, became formally united.

The night after the rights were performed, he was out preaching as usual — lamp in hand, bell ringing, walking alone at nine o'clock through the villages. Near a river he saw a huge man emerge from the bush, stand before him, bow, and disappear the instant he raised his own head. He started shivering. He crossed the river. His wife was standing ahead with a lamp, waiting for him. She saw immediately that something had happened. She took his lamp and Bible, removed his shirt, put him in the washroom, and poured water over him until he recovered. He says: if you want to marry, marry a woman with understanding.

She visited him in a dream two or three months before this interview and told him the people who will come to visit you, speak well. Be mindful of your language. It's all right.

He misses her badly.

Growing Up: Salt Pond, Jamestown, Accra

He was the only child of his mother. His father was the first African Director of Prisons — the photograph is on the wall. His mother was a fish trader, one of those who waited at the seaside when the catch came in. When he was a young boy in Salt Pond he was frequently at the beach swimming and playing when he should have been elsewhere. His mother would come with the cane and take him home.

At seven, his grandmother on his father's side came to his mother in Salt Pond and said she was taking him to his father in Accra. His mother was reluctant but agreed. He was brought to Accra and placed in school. He felt like a prisoner — no more beach, no more swimming, restricted. His first school was Teacher Brown School in Jamestown. Then Accra Royal School. Then when Teacher Santi established a branch, he was drafted there.

In Jamestown the family lived near James Fort. He played football at Mabona with the other young boys. He was stubborn and naughty. His father gave him and each sibling their own individual cane, kept at home. He still has one upstairs for his children. He got his cane regularly. He says every young boy was naughty — it's normal.

He finished Standard Seven, his father sent him to secondary school, the examinations came from London rather than Ghana, and he was strong in literature, history, geography, and English. Mathematics was never his strength. He loved literature. It is what made him a teacher.

The Earthquake of 1939

He was in Accra, around 13 years old. He is a witness to it and says it is not a joke. The shaking came more than once. People panicked. Properties were damaged. He was at home for at least one occurrence — the ground beneath him, the ground his body stood on, was moving. Some people ran from their homes. His father and James Fort chief Abu called people to come to the park for protection. He did not see much cracking in the old buildings around James Fort or the Dumpster building nearby. But people were afraid and the damage around the city was real.

Independence Day 1957

He was a schoolboy. They were all sent to the park — the one that is now a park — and they marched. In front was the Old Parliament House. On one side was what he remembers as the European house, which became the Ghana Club. He marched with the other children. He remembers the feeling of the occasion but does not claim to remember every detail across nearly seventy years.

Teaching, Farming, and Preaching: A Life of Simultaneity

He was sent by the CPP to teach in the villages — first a school in Buaan, then transferred to a village called Eduman near Kordier. School ended at half past one or two in the afternoon and then there was nothing to do until the evening when the children came back for night classes. He decided to farm.

He grew cocoa, plantain, and coconut — akushie. The farms are still there in the village. He is not sure of their current state but his sons are working them. He farmed for himself and sold the produce. The appeal was self-control: nobody directing him, nobody telling him when to start and stop. He would go at two, come back at five, teach the evening classes until seven, then take his lamp and Bible and go from village to village preaching until nine. He did this persistently.

One night returning from preaching, after crossing a lake and meeting the apparition that bowed to him, he found his wife standing ahead with her own lamp waiting for him. This was the texture of their life together in those early years — both of them out after dark, both of them returning, both of them with lamps.

He also established evening classes at the school. He says plainly: it was I who established evening classes there. By five or six in the evening the boys would come back and he would teach them until seven.

The Holy Church of God

His father founded it in 1955 — two years before Ghana's independence, which means the church is older than the country. He calls this out directly with satisfaction. The founding name was given in a dream to Aquaji, a member, who was told to keep paper and pen by his bed and write it down when the message came. The name that came was The Holy Church of God. When Aquaji brought it to his father, his father confirmed it spiritually and noted that the definite article The was significant — most mission churches of that era, Presbyterian, Methodist, Roman Catholic, did not carry the definite article. The article was the marker.

His father trained him personally on the job, teaching him how to lead the church service at Kumasi after the church had been formally constituted. A prophet from Nigeria had come to deliver a message to someone — he had described the person but could not find them at first — and eventually the message reached the son of the founder. Part of the message confirmed what his own father had told him: listen to your parents and you will live longer. Another part of the message told him to leave his teaching post. He did not leave immediately. He held on for three more years and fasted for twenty-one weeks under the direction of the spiritual leaders. His father watched over him during this time.

He eventually became General Overseer of the church, the second after his father. He is now retired from that position. His son Ruben is the current leader. He still attends and remains involved. The church has branches in London, Germany, and Connecticut, established because members who emigrated abroad invited him to come and plant branches. That is how he eventually did travel to America — not for religious studies, as he had originally been sent to do before his father stopped him, but as a founder establishing community.

The America That Was Not To Be

This story is told with warmth and laughter by the old man. He was teaching in Kumasi when the Reverend of the Baptist mission told him he should go to Nigeria for a diploma in religion, then come back and go to America to further his religious studies. He was happy. His wife was happy. Their parents were happy — those days, to go to America was not a joke.

He went to his father to announce it. His father was in his gown, having finished his dinner. He said: You go to America today, you go to America tomorrow. His son thought he was joking. He repeated the whole thing. His father was not joking. He said the father is here. The worship is closer. You don't have to go anywhere to worship God.

Then his father went and got his gun — he was going to church — and told his son to come along. He brought him a singlet and white shirt, told him he looked a bit sweaty, waited for him to wash, and put him in the car and drove him to Konongo. The son was still planning to slip away in the night and make his way to Buaan to begin the journey. His father watched him all night and did not sleep. The following morning the son gave up. His father took him to his office, bought weeding equipment from the market, brought him home at lunch, watched him eat, took him back to the office for the afternoon, brought him home, made him change into work clothes, and set him to weeding the compound of the bungalow while he sat under a mango tree watching. Then he began teaching him the Bible. Passersby stopped to listen. In time there was a small gathering, and from that gathering the seeds of the church grew. He calls it God is wonderful, and says it several times throughout the interview.

County Juice and the Farm Businesses

He produced fruit juice — pineapple and orange, grown on his own farm, pressed and sold as County Juice. Very tasty, he says without modesty. He handed the business to his boys. Some could not manage it. His son Gabriel, eighteen years old, has turned to rearing pigs instead, perhaps sensing a bigger market. His son Ruben manages what remains of the farm operation. He has farms here in Accra as well, with orange trees on the land around the house. He ate kenkey and fish the day before this interview, cooked by a daughter-in-law. He eats everything God made.

Hearts of Oak

His father was one of the founding members of Accra Hearts of Oak, formed in 1911. He cannot go beyond that as the reason for his devotion — the pride of having a father who was there at the beginning. He played football himself, both legs, right wing was his best. He declines to mention a favorite player from the old days on the grounds that he himself was the best player. He watched the team until he could no longer walk to the stadium. He is not happy with the current state of Hearts of Oak. He worries that they are not being trained properly. He cannot understand how a professional player misses a penalty: you put it down, not up. He himself never took penalties because penalties give people a reason to talk, and not every talking is good talking.

He watched the 2010 World Cup in principle but not the Uruguay quarterfinal. He understands that the penalty was missed. He does not forgive missed penalties. He is hopeful but not convinced about the Black Stars in 2026. His concern is not the players — he does not blame them. He blames those who select them. Dishonesty, he says quietly, has entered the system.

On Marriage and Loneliness

He will not compare marriages then and now because the only marriage he knew was his own and his wife is gone. He will not take another wife because he does not want the link and the love that existed between them to be displaced. She comes to him in dreams. She told him about this very interview two or three months before it happened: people will come and visit you — speak well, be mindful of your language, it's all right.

He misses her badly. When he tries to say how much, his voice catches and he gestures instead — she used to get up from her chair and come and sit on his lap. That was their life. And then at the railway station where she came to find him after his father had held him in Accra without her knowing where he was — she hugged him so powerfully that if he had not been strong he would have fallen. He crossed his legs when he tells it.

On Death

He is not afraid of death. He says it simply. He came into this world not knowing how, and he will leave not knowing how. There is nothing to fear. He says he knows when he will die — not the date, not the time, but when he was 98 years old he was told he had three more years. His sons know this. He told them. He has been resting more since then, staying indoors more, being careful of what he eats, not moving around unnecessarily. The doctors at Legon told him the same things on medical grounds. The spiritual and the medical arrived at the same advice.

He has not been to heaven and will not pretend to describe it. Those who have gone there may tell him, but he cannot speak to something he has not seen. What he knows is that a time will come when he passes away. That is all he knows. He is prepared for it.

His Message

To parents: train your children while they are small. Do not fear them because they are feeding you. If you cannot correct your own child, you are not serving that child. Put them on the right path. Tell them what the end result of wrong behavior will be.

To the youth: Exodus 20:12. Honor your father and mother. But this does not only mean the people who raised you — it means any person you come in contact with. Give that person respect and honor. Every human being deserves to be treated as you would wish to be treated yourself.

To everyone: be honest. Be truthful. God speaks to everything under the sun — the tree, the ant, the fish in the sea, and to you. The only reason you do not hear is that your faith and confidence in the creator is shaking. Still yourself. Trust. Listen.