William Emmanuel Abraham, also known as Willie E. Abraham or, to give his day name, Kojo Abraham (born on Monday, 28 May 1934), is a Ghanaian retired philosopher.
William Emmanuel Abraham, also known as Willie E. Abraham or, to give his day name, Kojo Abraham (born on Monday, 28 May 1934), is a Ghanaian retired philosopher.
Abraham was educated at the Government Boys' School and Adisadel Secondary School in Cape Coast, Ghana. He obtained a BA from the University of Ghana, graduating with first-class honours in philosophy in 1957. [1] Travelling to England to study at Oxford University, he received a B.Phil. and was the first African to be elected a Fellow of All Souls College. [2] In 1960 he was nominated to be a Governor of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University.
On his return to Ghana in 1962 he joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ghana, and published his book The Mind of Africa, a philosophical work arguing for Pan-Africanism. He was elected vice-president of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1963, [1] in that capacity visiting scientific facilities in the Soviet Union in a seven-week tour in the summer of 1963. He became a close associate of Kwame Nkrumah, collaborating on Nkrumah's work Consciencism, published in 1964. [2] Abraham replaced Conor Cruise O'Brien as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana in September 1965. [1] He also chaired a commission that reported in 1964 on "alleged irregularities and malpractices in connection with the issue of import licences", and was a non-resident lecturer in African Studies at the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute from 1963 until its closure in 1966.
It was Willie Abraham, not Nkrumah, who wrote the book, Consciencism. Soon after the book was first published in 1964, the people who knew Nkrumah and Willie Abraham said it was Abraham, not Nkrumah who wrote the book. As Ama Biney stated in her doctoral thesis, Kwame Nkrumah: An Intellectual Biography:
"There is considerable speculation that Nkrumah was not the writer of this book and rather Prof. William Abraham was instead the author....The impenetrable style of writing is unlike that of Nkrumah's other more accessible works." – (Ama B. Biney, Kwame Nkrumah: An Intellectual Biography, doctoral thesis, University of London, 2007, p. 231).
Identified as "Nkrumah's court philosopher", Abraham was arrested in the 1966 coup which established Joseph Arthur Ankrah as president. [3] He emigrated to the United States and held academic positions at Macalaster College and the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he is currently Professor Emeritus of Philosophy. He has had a life-long interest in the life and work of the eighteenth-century Ghanaian philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo.
Francis Kwame Nkrumah was a Ghanaian Marxist politician, political theorist, and revolutionary. He served as Prime Minister of the Gold Coast from 1952 until 1957, when it gained independence from Britain. He was then the first Prime Minister and then the President of Ghana, from 1957 until 1966. An influential advocate of Pan-Africanism, Nkrumah was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity and winner of the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union in 1962.
Axim is a coastal town and the capital of Nzema East Municipal district, a district in Western Region of South Ghana. Axim lies 64 kilometers west of the port city of Sekondi-Takoradi in the Western Region, west of Cape Three Points. Axim has a 2013 settlement population of 27,719 people.
Anton Wilhelm Amo or Anthony William Amo was a Nzema philosopher from Axim, Dutch Gold Coast. Amo was a professor at the universities of Halle and Jena in Germany after studying there. He was brought to Germany by the Dutch West India Company in 1707 and was presented as a gift to Dukes Augustus William and Ludwig Rudolf of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, being treated as a member of the family by their father Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. In 2020, Oxford University Press published a translation of his Latin works from the early 1730s.
Alex Quaison-Sackey was a Ghanaian diplomat who served during the first and third republics. He was the first black African to serve as president of the United Nations General Assembly.
Joseph Kwame Kyeretwie Boakye Danquah was a Ghanaian politician, scholar, lawyer and statesman. He was a politician in pre- and post-colonial Ghana, which was formerly the Gold Coast, and is credited with giving Ghana its current name.
The prime minister of Ghana was the head of government of Ghana from 1957 to 1960 and again from 1969 to 1972.
The Nzema are an Akan people numbering about 328,700, of whom 262,000 live in southwestern Ghana and 66,700 live in the southeast of Côte d'Ivoire. In Ghana the Nzema area is divided into three electoral districts: Nzema East Municipal, also known as Evalue Gwira; Ellembele; and Nzema West, also known as Jomoro. Their language is also known as Nzima or Appolo.
Joseph Emmanuel Appiah, MP was a Ghanaian lawyer, politician and statesman.
The National Liberation Council (NLC) led the Ghanaian government from 24 February 1966 to 1 October 1969. The body emerged from a coup d'état against the Nkrumah government carried out jointly by the Ghana Police Service and Ghana Armed Forces with collaboration from the Ghana Civil Service.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was the first Prime Minister and first President of Ghana. Nkrumah had run governments under the supervision of the British government through Charles Arden-Clarke, the Governor-General. His first government under colonial rule started from 21 March 1952 until independence. His first independent government took office on 6 March 1957. From 1 July 1960, Ghana became a republic and Nkrumah became the first president of Ghana.
The Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute was an educational body in Winneba, founded to promote socialism in Ghana as well as the decolonization of Africa. During its construction, the first stone was laid by Kwame Nkrumah on 18 February 1961. The institute was designed to promote national independence, for almost all Ghanaians in the first Nkrumah government were trained in the United Kingdom or United States. The institute's Director was Kodwo Addison, a prominent Ghanaian activist.
Real Republicans Football Club were a Ghanaian association football club based in the capital, Accra, along with Hearts of Oak, one of the most successful Ghanaian clubs in recent years. It was claimed it held Ghana's record for the most consecutive wins, four. The club claimed it formed the core of the national team, Ghana Black Stars.
Nkrumaism is an African socialist political ideology based on the thinking and writing of Kwame Nkrumah. Nkrumah, a pan-Africanist and socialist, served as Prime Minister of the Gold Coast from 1952 until 1960 and subsequently as President of Ghana before being deposed by the National Liberation Council in 1966.
Kofi Batsa was a Ghanaian political activist and writer.
Akua Asabea Ayisi was a feminist, former High Court Judge and the first female Ghanaian journalist. During the rise of the Ghanaian independence movement, Akua Asabea Ayisi trained as a journalist with Mabel Dove-Danquah and Kwame Nkrumah, who would later become the country's first prime minister and president.
Alhaji Adam Nii Dodoo Ankrah also is a Ghanaian former footballer. He competed in the men's tournament at the 1964 Summer Olympics.
Kobina Hagan (1923-1977) was a Ghanaian politician and teacher. He was the Principal Secretary for the Central Organisation of Sports (COS) from 1960 to 1963 and later member of parliament for the Denkyira constituency from 1965 to 1966.
Kweku Budu-Acquah was a Ghanaian politician and diplomat. He served as Ghana's first ambassador Somalia and Ghana's resident Minister in Guinea from 1962 to 1964. He served as Ambassador Extra Ordinary and Minister Plenipontentary from 1964 until 1966 when the Nkrumah government was overthrown.
Ama Biney is a British Ghanaian historian, journalist, political scientist and academic, who for more than 25 years has lectured and taught courses on African and Caribbean history, the History of Black People in Britain, and on international relations in the UK and in Ghana, including at such institutions as Middlesex University, Birkbeck College, University of London, the University of Liverpool, and Webster University Ghana. Among outlets for which she has written are New African magazine, African Studies Quarterly, South African History Online and Pambazuka News, for which she has served as Editor-in-Chief. As an independent Pan-Africanist scholar and activist, she follows Steve Biko's tradition of "writing what she likes."
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