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Human Treasure Losses In Ghana ( Part 1)

Below is a list of some notable Ghanaian intellectuals, patriots, and public figures who have passed on, and with their deaths the loss of precious and quality citizens.

Is any member of the new generation ready to step into the huge shoes which traveled to the apogee of their careers?

Emmanuel Alexander Erskine (19 January 1935 – 7 May 2021)

He was a Ghanaian military officer and politician.

He was a Chief of Army Staff of the Ghana Army.

He was also a commander of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

 

Henry Romulus Sawyerr, (25 April 1926 – 8 November 2013)

He was a Ghanaian politician and quantity surveyor who was Minister for Education from 1993 to 1997 in Ghana.

Previously, Sawyerr had been twice elected as a Member of Parliament for Osu-Klottey in the 2nd and 3rd Ghanaian republics.

However, he served in parliament during the 2nd Republic and gave up his seat in parliament to be Minister for Transport and Communications in the 3rd Ghanaian republic.

 

Joseph Henry Mensah (31 October 1928 – 12 July 2018)

He was a Ghanaian politician and economist. In 1969, he was elected to parliament and became the Finance minister in the Busia government until 1972, when he was replaced by future head of state Ignatius Kutu Acheampong after the military coup d’état.

Mensah represented the Sunyani East constituency in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th parliaments of the republic of Ghana. He was the Senior Minister in President J.A Kufour’s government from 2001-2008.

 

Mr Apenten Appiah Menkah (3 July 1933-18 February 2018)

He was a professional lawyer and a leading member of the New Patriotic Party.

He was a Deputy Minister in the second republic of Ghana. After the Busia government was overthrown in 1972, he went into oil palm farming and business and became the proprietor of the company which produced the popular ”Apino soap” in the 1980s.

 

Prof. Albert Kwadwo Adu Boahen (24 May 1932 – 24 May 2006)

Adu Boahen was a Ghanaian academic, historian, and politician.

He was an academic at the University of Ghana from 1959 to 1990, from 1971 onwards as a professor. As a politician, he notably was a candidate in the 1992 Ghanaian presidential election representing the New Patriotic Party.

 

John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills (21 July 1944 – 24 July 2012)

Professor Mills was a Ghanaian politician and legal scholar who served as President of Ghana from 2009 until his death in 2012.

He was inaugurated on 7 January 2009, having defeated the governing party candidate Nana Akufo-Addo in the 2008 election.

Prof. Mills is the only Ghanaian Head of State to have died in office. He was Vice-President to President Rawlings from 1997 to 2001.

 

Mary Grant (6 August 1928 – 18 September 2016)

She was a Ghanaian physician and politician. She was Ghana’s first Council of State member and also the first Wesley Girls High School alumna to be a medical doctor.

Grant was the third Ghanaian woman to qualify in medicine after Susan Ofori-Atta (1947) and Matilda J. Clerk (1949).

She was a relation of Paa Grant, who has been called “the father of Gold Coast politics”. Mary Grant was a member of the PNDC/NDC government.

 

Annie Ruth Jiagge, (née Baëta; 7 October 1918 – 12 June 1996)

Also known as Annie Baëta Jiagge, was a Ghanaian lawyer, judge and women’s rights activist.

She was the first woman in Ghana and the Commonwealth of Nations to become a judge. She was a principal drafter of the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and a co-founder of the organization that became Women’s World Banking.

 

Jerry J. Rawlings (22 June 1947— 12 November 2020)

In full Jerry John Rawlings also called J.J. Rawlings, was a military and political leader in Ghana who twice (1979, 1981) overthrew the government and seized power.

His second period of rule (1981–2001) afforded Ghana political stability and competent economic management.

 

Prof. Kwesi Botchwey (13 September 1942 – 19 November 2022)

He was a Ghanaian government official and Professor of Practice in Development Economics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University.

Botchwey was Minister for Finance and Economic Planning from 1982 to 1995. He was appointed by Jerry Rawlings to assist in stabilizing Ghana’s collapsed economy.

 

Kwaku Baprui Asante (26 March 1924 – 22 January 2018)

He was a Ghanaian diplomat, writer, and politician. He was the Secretary to Ghana’s First President Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

Asante served under most Heads of State in Ghana, starting from Nkrumah, and also served as the Principal Secretary at African Affairs Secretariat from 1960 to 1966. He was educated at Achimota School and later returned there to teach Mathematics.

 

Emmanuel Evans-Anfom (7 October 1919 – 7 April 2021)

Mr Anfom was a Ghanaian physician, scholar, university administrator, and public servant who served as the second Vice Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology from 1967 to 1973.

 

Atukwei John Okai (15 March 1941 – 13 July 2018)

He was a Ghanaian poet, cultural activist, and academic. He was Secretary-General of the Pan African Writers’ Association and a president of the Ghana Association of Writers. His early work was published under the name John Okai.

With his poems rooted in the oral tradition, he is generally acknowledged to have been the first real performance poet to emerge from Africa.

 

George Kwabena Effah Benneh (6 March 1934 – 11 February 2021)

He was a Ghanaian geographer, academic and university administrator who served as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon from 1992 to 1996.

He was a professor and later an emeritus professor of Geography and Resource Development at the same university. Between 1979 and 1981, Benneh was also the Commissioner and Minister of Lands, Natural Resources, Fuel, and Power.

He also served as the Finance minister from May to December 1981 under Hilla Limann during the Third Republic the Third Republic

 

Marian Ewurama Addy  ( 7 February 1942 – 14 January 2014)

..

She was a Ghanaian biochemist and the first Host of the National Science and Maths Quiz.

The first Ghanaian woman to attain the rank of full professor of natural science, Addy became a role model for school girls and budding females.

 

Capt. Kojo Tsikata (1936 – 20 November 2021)

He was a Ghanaian military officer and politician, who served as the Head of National Security and Foreign Affairs of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).

He was listed as a retired army captain in the Ghana Army.

 

Sulley Gariba (4 May 1958 – 27 April 2021)

He was a policy analyst and evaluation specialist who served as an advisor to the former president of Ghana John Dramani Mahama from 2009-2017, though he was a member of the PNC and not the ruling NDC.

He monitored and evaluated poverty reduction in Canadian International Development. He was later posted to Canada as Ghana’s High Commissioner.

 

Bernard Joao da Rocha (16 May 1927 – 23 February 2010)

Born in Cape Coast, he was a founding member and the First National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party. He was also the first Ghanaian Director of the Ghana School of Law when it was opened in 1958.

 

Kofi Atta Annan (8 April 1938 – 18 August 2018)

A Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.

He was the founder and chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as chairman of The Elders, an international organization founded by Nelson Mandela.

David Sarpong Boateng, (DS Boateng) born October 9, 1943 in Koforidua and died 2015. He was PNDC Secretary for Labour, Mobilisation, and Productivity as Deputy and Substantive. He was later Ghana’s ambassador to Cuba.

 

Ephraim Kɔku Amu (13 September 1899 – 2 January 1995)

Amu was a Ghanaian composer, musicologist, and teacher.

He was born on 13 September 1899 at Peki-Avetile (also called Abenase) in the Peki Traditional Area of the Volta Region.

 

Francis Kofi Ampenyin Allotey (9 August 1932– 2 November 2017)

He was a Ghanaian mathematical physicist. Together with Daniel Afedzi Akyeampong, he became the first Ghanaian to obtain a doctorate in mathematical sciences, earned in 1966.

 

Ambassador George Lamptey

Ambassador George Lamptey served as Ghana’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1994 to 1994.

He later became Ghana’s ambassador to Egypt where he died during the time he was serving on that diplomatic schedule.

 

Alhaji Aliu Mahama (3 March 1946 – 16 November 2012)

He was a Ghanaian engineer and politician who was Vice-President of Ghana from 7 January 2001 to 7 January 2009.

A member of the New Patriotic Party, he was Ghana’s first Muslim Vice-President.

 

Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur (29 April 1951 – 29 June 2018)

He was a Ghanaian economist, academic, and politician who was the fifth Vice-President of Ghana’s 4th Republic, in office from 6 August 2012 until 7 January 2017, under President John Dramani Mahama. Previously he was Governor of the Bank of Ghana from 2009 to 2012.

 

Joseph William Swain de Graft-Johnson (6 October 1933 – 22 April 1999)

He was a Ghanaian engineer, academic, and politician. He served as Vice-President of Ghana from 1979 to 1981.

 

Hawa Yakubu Ogede (24 March 1948 – 20 March 2007)

She was a Ghanaian politician. She was a Member of Parliament in the Fourth Republic of Ghana and also served as Minister for Tourism.

 

Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu (1952 – 24 September 2008)

He was a Ghanaian politician and a chartered accountant. He was a Member of Parliament in the Parliament of Ghana for Asante Akim North Constituency from January 1997 until his death on September 24, 2008.

He served as a Minister of state in different ministries under the Kufuor government from 2001.

 

Justice Daniel Francis Kweipe Annan (November 7, 1928 – July 16, 2006)

He was the Speaker of the Parliament of Ghana from 1993 to 2001.

He was a member of the Provisional National Defence Council government which governed Ghana prior to the fourth republic.

 

Peter Ala Adjetey (11 August 1931 – 15 July 2008)

He was the Speaker of the Parliament of Ghana from 2001 to 2005.

Adjetey was the Member of Parliament for Kpeshie in the Third Republic of Ghana. He was also the leader of the United National Convention Parliamentary group during the same period.

In 1995, he became Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), a position he held until 1998.

 

Lieutenant General Winston Mensa-Wood ( 10 November 1940- 21 March 1992)

He was a former Ghanaian military officer and served as the twenty-third Chief of Defence Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces from June 1990 to March 1992. Prior to that, he was Chief of Army Staff from 1987 to 1990.

He was a member of the PNDC Government that ruled Ghana from the early 1980s until his death.

 

James Emmanuel Kwegyir Aggrey-Orleans, (11 October 1937 – 19 November 2018)

He was a Ghanaian civil servant and diplomat who served as Ghana’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Ambassador of Ghana to the Republic of Ireland from October 1997 to March 2001.

 

Paul Victor Obeng  (19 August 1947 – 17 May 2014)

Also known as P. V. Obeng was a Ghanaian mechanical engineer and politician.

He was the chairman of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Council. In 2010, he was appointed by President John Atta Mills’ administration as Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission.

He was a member of the PNDC government up to 1997. Prior to that, he was the Coordinator of Secretaries under the PNDC military government.

 

Jacob “Jake” Lantei Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey (4 February 1946 – 20 March 2016)

He was a Ghanaian politician and advertising businessman.

He was co-owner and general manager of Lintas W.A. (later Advantage Group) from 1974 before his assumption of cabinet roles in the government of John Kufuor.

 

Joseph H. Owusu Acheampong (1941–2017)

He was a Ghanaian politician and a member of the 2nd parliament of the 4th republic of Ghana representing Berekum Constituency under the membership of the National Democratic Congress as Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Food and Agriculture.

 

Squadron Leader Clend Sowu (1931-2010)

He was a leading member of the National Democratic Congress and served as Minister of Works and Housing. He was a member of the parliament representing Anlo and one-time as Board Chairman of the Electricity Company of Ghana.

 

Kow Nkensen Arkaah (14 July 1927 – 25 April 2001)

He was a Ghanaian politician who was Vice-President of Ghana from 1993 to 1997. He was also a chief of Senya Breku.

Arkaah became the leader of the National Convention Party (NCP) prior to the 1992 presidential elections.

His party formed an alliance with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) of Jerry Rawlings, and Every Ghanaian Living Everywhere (EGLE). As part of the deal, Arkaah became the Vice-Presidential candidate on Rawlings’ ticket.

In 1996, he was the running mate of candidate J.A Kufour on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party.

 

Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia FGA GM MSG (22 June 1921 – 13 March 2019)

He was a Ghanaian ethnomusicologist and composer. Considered Africa’s premier musicologist, during his lifetime, he was called a “living legend” and “easily the most published and best-known authority on African music.

 

Esther Afua Ocloo (born Esther Afua Nkulenu; 18 April 1919 – 8 February 2002)

She was a Ghanaian businesswoman and pioneer of microlending, a programme of making small loans in order to stimulate businesses. She was one of the founders of Women’s World Banking in 1976.

Also the founder of Nkulenu industries.

 

Joe Reindorf (1924 – 1996)

He was a Ghanaian historian, lawyer, and politician. He served in the third republic as Attorney General and Minister for the Justice of Ghana.

He was the lawyer for President Rawlings when his citizenship was challenged in court in the early days of the fourth republic.

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