NELSON MNDELA'S REGRET

In an interview he granted a popular television network in the twilight of his tenure as the first black president of independent South Africa, Dr. Nelson Mandela, told the interviewer while he was alive that he regretted, and was saddened by the fact that people saw him as one superhuman or small god who had answers to all human problems. While he expressed gratitude for people’s admiration and adulation of him, he said he, like any human, had his limitations, weaknesses and regrets.
As he told a delegation that visited him in Johannesburg in 1994, Mandela’s biggest regret was the way he found his family when he was released from prison in 1990. He was so distressed by what he saw that he almost regretted the monumental sacrifice he made for South Africa. He regretted the fact that he was not there to play his fatherly roles. And that was one of the primary  reasons he decided to serve only one term as president.
Edward Boateng, the executive chairman of Global Media Alliance, Ghana, also founder of the CNN African Journalist of the Year Awards, was in the powerful delegation that Madiba intimated this. He recounted that encounter in this exclusive  interview that he granted Sunday Sun on Friday. Excerpts:

Could you kindly recount the encounter you had with the late President Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg? I saw a picture you took with him when I visited your office in Accra.
I was fortunate to meet President Mandela as the leader of the nation in April 1994. CNN had sent a team to cover the transition, and I was part of that team working with SABC then. While working with SABC, I ended up working with ANC (African National Congress) media team. I used to work long hours with Solanki Sisulu. Solanki used to spend a lot of time with Mr. Mandela and I used to go with him to some of those meetings.
Before the 1994 encounter, you also had an interaction with Mandela in 1992. Did he share his regrets with you?
We didn’t dwell much on that in 1992. You know, that was the period of transition. And we were working on the transition. It was when he became president that I had an opportunity, once, to have breakfast with him, and then spokesperson, the late Park. And I asked him one of his biggest regrets. He said his biggest regret was the fact that he wasn’t around to see his children grow up. As a father, he had ambitions for his children. And I remember when I asked him that question, he replied with his voice choking that when he came out of jail, he didn’t like what he saw of his family. He said he was going to focus a lot of time to make sure he righted the situation and make sure that his children and grandchildren enjoyed the best of him. It probably accounted for one of the reasons he just did one term and stood down because he had to focus on his family. And I am glad that his children and grandchildren had opportunity to spend time with him before he left us.
He categorically told you that he regretted that his children didn’t turn out as well as he would have wished?
He didn’t tell me alone. It wasn’t only me. He said it to a lot of people.
And that’s one of the reasons he had to step down after only one term?
(Cuts in…) You asked one of his regrets…