Founder of the African University College of Communications (AUCC) and creator of the popular ‘Inspector Bediako’ TV series, says it is important that Africans see themselves on the screen.
Kojo Yankah shared the drive for producing one of the best and sole locally produced law enforcement programmes in the early 90s.
In an interview with Y107.9 FM’s Y Leaderboard Series, he disclosed that his passion for writing factored in the creator of ‘Inspector Bediako’, but most importantly, the desire to change the narrative and allow Africans “see themselves on television sets.”
“I’m happy that DStv came on board and said they wanted to show Inspector Bediako. It’s one of the things I created. It was just like writing a book. I created it because I thought Africans should see themselves on television.
“We used to watch a lot of detective series. I asked myself that we also do detective work. Our Police haven’t gotten to that level so I’ll use technology into a fiction space and create an Inspector Bediako,” he told host Rev Erskine.
On choosing the name, he added, “I chose the name for a reason. Bediako is one who likes fighting so he fights against social ills, indiscipline, corruption, bribery and stuff like that. I created Bediako to be the one who is now going to fight all these social ills.
“It was late in the early 90s and again we got private sponsorship from a number of companies. They were fighting among themselves to sponsor and at first, it was like will this survive? An African TV, detective series then it got on. Even children when you send any child in the afternoon they’d probably forget because they’re going to watch Inspector Bediako.”
Mr Yankah reiterated that the series later got suspended after he chased his political ambition.
“Because I went into parliament and politics time didn’t allow me to further the narrative. There were other people directing it but it didn’t get the kind of gravitas it had so it got suspended,” he said.
‘Inspector Bediakor’ after its launching in Accra on March 24 1993 gave the country a unique feel of Black Excellence.
The 30-minute episodes featured the likes of Oscar Provencal as the lead actor, Akosua Abdallah, Gloria Nsia Ababio (Dela), Martin Owusu (Bentle) and Teiko.
Later last year, in December 2021 the detective movie had a remake with new faces in the industry.
