Kofi Nsia-Pepra

Kofi Nsia-Pepra is a professor of international politics, international human rights researcher, and a veteran of the Ghana armed forces. He's worked with the United Nations as a peacekeeper in Rwanda and Sierre Leone.

"I was born in Ghana and have experienced the worse of humanity, poverty, lack of quality education, lack of quality housing, quality healthcare system. I've witnessed human rights violations, poor government, and even war, and I was able to overcome these challenges thru the help of my community. As a result of this, I've dedicated my life to serve humanity and my community. We live in the greatest and richest country in the world and we all expect to achieve the American Dream. But suddenly and unfortunately, we've seen a greater majority of Americans living in poverty, facing a whole lot of problems, such as poor housing, poor education. They cannot even afford to go to school or to see a doctor because of lack of insurance. We have a crisis of opiates. We have gun violence. These are remarkable social, political, and economic ...and these are against the poor, ordinary working class. This should not happen within the richest and greatest country in the world. The time has come for us to elect ...a progressive, transformative leadership to bolding address the challenges our people face. That's the reason I'm running for this office...I have the skills of diplomacy and conflict resolution I developed in my field work with the United Nations and traveling all over the world teaching various diverse students....We are all children of God so we have to live in dignity and equality, justice and in peace....Before you can achieve goals, you have to have the capacity to work with people. These are the skills I've learned and the skills I teach my students : negotiation and compromise without losing your fundamental values...What divides us (as a nation and as a world) is actually very minute, comparable to what obviously unites us. We all face common challenges...We all want good health and good housing and safety and the ability to take of social, economic, and political justice for all people...Strategic and institutionalized divisions are calculated to prevent us from achieving our collective goal...We have to focus on the essentialities that unite us. We got to ignore the little stuff that divides us and focus on the interests that unite all of us. My campaign slogan is "progress together. " Unity and progress together....We must confront the problems of the world together. That is what I teach my students, the leaders of the future. Collective problems demand collective effort. Obviously, we might disagree on certain issues but that does not mean that we cannot agree to confront our collective problems. 'I am, because we are.' That should be the emphasis of our principles in life. Be our brother's keeper.