Ebenezer Ako-Adjei

Ako Adjei (17 June 1916 – 14 January 2002), was a Ghanaian statesman, politician, lawyer and journalist.

He was a member of the United Gold Coast Convention and one of six leaders who were detained during Ghana's struggle for political independence from Britain, a group famously called The Big Six.

He has been recognized as a founding father of Ghana for his active participation in the immediate politics of Ghana's pre-independence era.

Ako Adjei was born on 17 June 1916 in Adjeikrom in Akyem Abuakwa land.

Adjeikrom is a small farming community found in the Eastern Region of Ghana (then the Gold Coast).

His father was Samuel Adjei, a farmer and trader, whom Ako Adjei's place of birth is thought to be named after, and his mother was Johanna Okaile Adjei.

Both parents were from La, a settlement near the coastal sea at Accra.

He had many brothers and sisters but was the youngest of his father's children.

His early education began in the Eastern Region at the Busoso Railway Primary School, where he walked 14 miles to school and back home.

He was taken to Accra where he continued his education at the La Presbyterian Junior School starting in class 3.

He was unable to speak the Ga language which was his mother tongue, however, he could read and write Twi, and speak Dangme.

He continued in the La Presbyterian Senior School until 1933 when he got to Standard Six.

In March 1933 he won a scholarship to study at Christ Church Grammar School, a private secondary school which was on the point of winding up.

He returned to the La Presbyterian Senior School after a month at Christ Church Grammar School because he did not like the school.

His father was then persuaded to send him to the Accra Academy, then a private secondary school trying to find its feet through the help of enterprising young men.

In April 1933 he entered the Accra Academy and he liked it there.

He walked four miles from La to Jamestown (where the school was then situated), because he could not afford the bus fare which was about two pence.

In 1934 he sat for the Junior Cambridge examination and passed it.

While at the Accra Academy, he found difficulty in meeting the cost of books, however, a member of the staff, Mr. Halm Addo (one of the four founders of the school), used to help him with money for books.

In December, 1936 he was one of the candidates presented by the Accra Academy for the Cambridge Senior School leaving Certificate Examination.

Among the candidates who passed the examination, only two obtained exemption from the London Matriculation Examination Board.

One of these students was Ako Adjei.

He taught for a while at the Accra Academy in 1937 before joining the Junior Civil Service in June 1937.

From June 1937 to December 1938 he was a Second Division Clerk in the Gold Coast Civil Service.

He was assigned to assist Harold Cooper, a European Assistant Colonial Secretary, and J. E. S. de Graft-Hayford to organise and establish the Gold Coast Broadcasting Service.

These were the beginnings of what is now the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.

While studying at the Accra Academy Ako Adjei had taken an interest in journalism, he wrote for the African Morning Post, a newspaper that belonged to Nnamdi Azikiwe, who later became the first president of Nigeria.

Adjei became a member of parliament as a Convention People's Party candidate in 1954 and held ministerial offices until 1962 when as Minister for Foreign Affairs he was wrongfully detained for the Kulungugu bomb attack.

Born in Adjeikrom, a small village in the Akyem Abuakwa area, Ako Adjei had his tertiary education in the United States and the United Kingdom.

After his studies abroad, he returned home to join the movement of Gold Coast's struggle for political independence by joining the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) as a founding member.

Ako Adjei was instrumental in introducing Kwame Nkrumah into Ghana's political scene when he recommended him for the full time post of Organising Secretary of the UGCC.

Following Ghana's Independence, Ako Adjei served in various political portfolios including being the first Minister for Interior and Justice for the newly born nation, Ghana.

He also became Ghana's first Minister of Foreign Affairs when the portfolio was changed from Minister for External Affairs to Minister for Foreign Affairs in May 1961.

Ako Adjei's political career was however precluded after his detention for allegedly plotting to assassinate the then president Kwame Nkrumah in the Kulungugu bomb attack in 1962.

After his release in 1966, Ako Adjei spent the rest of his life in relative obscurity.

He remained unseen or unheard in the Ghanaian national and political discourse.

He resolved to focus on his family and his career as a legal practitioner.

In 1992 he published a biography of the Ghanaian businessman and statesman Mr.George Grant.

In 1997 he was awarded the Order of the Star of Ghana award – the highest national award of the Republic of Ghana, for his contribution to the struggle for Ghana's independence.

Ako Adjei died after a short illness in 2002.