Kodzo Ayeke | |
---|---|
Member of the Ghana Parliament for Ho West | |
In office 1954–1960 | |
Preceded by | New Constituency |
Succeeded by | Hans Kofi Boni |
Personal details | |
Born | Taviefe | 22 May 1923
Died | 20 May 1985 61) Hohoe,Ghana | (aged
Cause of death | Illness |
Nationality | Ghanaian |
Education | Accra Academy |
Alma mater | University of London Gray’s Inn |
Kodzo Afelete Ayeke (22 May 1923 - 20 May 1985) [1] was a Ghanaian politician,teacher,journalist,lawyer,and author. He was a member of parliament for Ho West,getting twice elected into parliament in 1954 and 1956 as a Togoland Congress member before joining the United Party on the ban of the Togoland Congress in 1958. As a journalist,he founded the Togoland Vanguard the first ever newspaper in the then Trans-Volta Togoland. An ethnic Ewe,he published two novels in the Ewe language,Asitsu Atoawo and Hlobiabia.
Kodzo Ayeke was born in Taviefe on 22 May 1923,the son of Augustus Ayeke and Ella Kafe Ayeke. His father,Augustus,was a carpenter and farmer at Taviefe. Kodzo was the grandson of Bele Komla,a famed local priest of Taviefe. [2]
Ayeke started schooling at Taviefe in 1931 before continuing at the middle school at Amedzofe,graduating in 1940. He entered the Accra Academy in 1942 as one of the first two people to acquire secondary education in his home town,Taviefe. At the Accra Academy,he obtained the Cambridge School Certificate with exemption in 1946. [2] In June 1959,he received the Inter LLB of the University of London after studying as a private candidate. In exile from Ghana,he continued his law studies in England,achieving the call to the bar at Gray’s Inn in 1973,when he was fifty years. He graduated in law from the University of London in 1975. [2]
After his secondary education,he joined the Gold Coast Civil Service in 1947. He was stationed at the Head Office of the Customs and Excise Department (now the Customs Excise and Preventive Service). [3] In 1950,Ayeke left the civil service and joined an Ewe Christian minister at Ve-Koloenu. There,he became a teacher at a newly founded school,Togo Academy,and taught at the school until 1953. [4]
In 1953,Ayeke founded and became editor of the Togoland Vanguard,a newspaper he operated from Hohoe. The Togoland Vanguard was the first ever newspaper in the Trans-Volta Togoland a UN trust territory under British trusteeship. Through his paper,he became an advocate of the Togoland Unification Movement,which sought for the Trans-Volta to be one country with French Togoland. [4]
In 1954,Ayeke stood for parliament at Ho West on the Togoland Congress ticket. Ayeke was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) and was one of three Togoland Congress members to make it to parliament that year. [5] In 1956,Ayeke got re-elected into parliament as MP for Ho West. [6] This time,he was one of two members of the Togoland Congress to be elected into parliament. [7] [8]
In parliament,Ayeke continued his advocacy for the reunification of Trans-Volta with French Togoland. He led the Togoland Congress during the 1956 British Togoland status plebiscite to campaign for votes against unification with the Gold Coast. [9] Ayeke also sought for the Togoland Academy to be placed on the government-assisted school list. [10] In 1959,Ayeke argued against the renaming of Trans-Volta/Togoland Region as Volta Region. [11] He criticised Nkrumah’s spending on the creation of an office to advise on African Affairs and his appointment of George Padmore to that office. [12]
In November 1957,Ayeke and S. G. Antor,the two Togoland Congress parliamentarians,were arrested and charged with riots in Alanvanyo,a town in the then Trans-Volta Togoland. In March 1958,both men were sentenced to six years imprisonment by a High Court in Ho which ruled them guilty,but on a further hearing by the Court of Appeal in June 1958,they were released to re-join parliament. [13] [14]
In 1960,Ayeke resigned as member of parliament for the Ho West constituency and was succeeded by Hans Kofi Boni through a bye-election. [15] In 1961,Ayeke left Ghana for Togo where he became a political refugee. In October 1965,he left Togo for West Germany and thereafter settled in England in 1966. There,Ayeke was chairman of the London branch of the Progress Party formed to contest elections in Ghana during Ghana's Second Republic from 1969 to 1972.
In Ghana's Third Republic,Ayeke was the chairman of the Volta Regional Branch of the Popular Front Party from 1979 to 1981. [16] Following his legal studies in England,Ayeke returned to Ghana in 1979 to practise privately. He underwent pupilage with Alfred Kpodonu of Alfredo Chambers and subsequently set up his own private practise,Tomefa Chambers. He set up his practise in the offices that became the Volta Regional Branch of the Popular Front Party after the lifting of the ban on party politics in 1979. His private law firm,Tomefa Chambers,initially at Ho-Bakoe,was subsequently relocated to his hometown,Taviefe,with an annex at Hohoe. Ayeke was a member of the Volta Region branch of the Ghana Bar Association. [2]
Ayeke authored and published two books in the Ewe language,Asitsu Atoawo (1998) and Hlobiabia (1998). [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] He published a third book in English,a collection of his poems titled Blackman's Image. [23] He also left behind two unpublished political manuscripts,Africa Looks Ahead and The Ugly Side,and an unpublished novel,The Divine Mission. The Five Rivals,his English rendition of his Ewe-written book Asitsu Atoawo,was also left behind to be published posthumously. [22]
Ayeke died on 20 May 1985 after being on admission for fever for five days at the Hohoe Government Hospital. Ayeke was sixty-one years old at his death. He left behind seventeen children. His funeral was attended by Victor Owusu,who had been presidential candidate of the Popular Front Party in Ghana’s Third Republic. [16]
The history of Togo can be traced to archaeological finds which indicate that ancient local tribes were able to produce pottery and process tin. During the period from the 11th century to the 16th century,the Ewé,the Mina,the Gun,and various other tribes entered the region. Most of them settled in coastal areas. The Portuguese arrived in the late 15th century,followed by other European powers. Until the 19th century,the coastal region was a major slave trade centre,earning Togo and the surrounding region the name "The Slave Coast".
British Togoland,officially the Mandate Territory of Togoland and later officially the Trust Territory of Togoland,was a territory in West Africa under the administration of the United Kingdom,which subsequently entered a union with Ghana,part of which became its Volta Region. The territory was effectively formed in 1916 by the splitting of the German protectorate of Togoland into two territories,French Togoland and British Togoland,during the First World War. Initially,it was a League of Nations Class B mandate. In 1922,British Togoland was formally placed under British rule,and French Togoland,now Togo,was placed under French rule.
Sylvanus Épiphanio Olympio was a Togolese politician who served as prime minister,and then president,of Togo from 1958 until his assassination in 1963. He came from the important Olympio family,which included his uncle Octaviano Olympio,one of the richest people in Togo in the early 1900s.
Logba is a Kwa language spoken in the south-eastern Ghana by approximately 7,500 people. The Logba people call themselves and their language Ikpana,which means ‘defenders of truth’. Logba is different from Lukpa of Togo and Benin,which is also sometimes referred to as Logba.
The Ewe people are a Gbe-speaking ethnic group. The largest population of Ewe people is in Ghana,and the second largest population is in Togo. They speak the Ewe language which belongs to the Gbe family of languages. They are related to other speakers of Gbe languages such as the Fon,Gen,Phla /Phera,Ogun/Gun,Maxi,and the Aja people of Togo and Benin.
Volta Region is one of Ghana's sixteen administrative regions,with Ho designated as its capital. It is located west of Republic of Togo and to the east of Lake Volta. Divided into 25 administrative districts,the region is multi-ethnic and multilingual,including groups such as the Ewe,the Guan,and the Akan peoples. The Guan peoples include the Lolobi,Likpe,Akpafu,Buem,Nyangbo,Avatime,and Nkonya. This region was carved out of the Volta Region in December 2018 by the New Patriotic Party. The people of the Volta Region are popularly known as Ewes. The people of the Volta Region are popular known for their rich cultural display and music some of which include Agbadza,Borborbor and Zigi.
Mount Afadja,known as Afadjato to the Ewe people of Ghana and Togo,is one of the highest mountains in Ghana. The summit is located in the Volta Region,near the border with Togo,close to the villages of Liati Wote and Gbledi Gbogame in the Afadjato South District and Hohoe Municipality,respectively. It is about 178 kilometers (111 mi) northeast of Accra,and 178 kilometers (111 mi) northwest of Lomé. Part of the Agumatsa sub-range of the West Africa Mountains,its summit is 885 metres (2,904 ft) above sea level. The summit of Mount Aduadu lies 3.5 kilometers (2 mi) to the east.
Raphael Ernest Grail Armattoe was a Ghanaian scientist and political activist. He was nominated for the 1948 Nobel Peace Prize and was a campaigner for unification of British and French Togoland. He was called by the New York Post "the 'Irishman' from West Africa",and the BBC producer Henry Swanzy referred to him as the "African Paracelsus".
The Anlo Youth Organisation was a political party that existed in the Gold Coast and later Ghana. It campaigned for the Ewe people under British rule to stay within Ghana after independence. It ended by merging with other parties to form a united opposition to the Convention People's Party.
The Evangelical Presbyterian Church,Ghana is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in Ghana. It is popularly referred to as the "EP Church". It has strong roots in the Evangelical and Reformed traditions. The denomination's Presbyterian sister church is the Presbyterian Church of Ghana.
Siwu is a language that is spoken in the mountainous central part of the Volta Region of Ghana. It belongs to the geographic group of Ghana Togo Mountain languages of the Kwa branch of Niger–Congo. The speakers of Siwu call themselves the Mawu and their land Kawu. Some of the speakers of Siwu lives around Lolobi communities.
The strains in Ghana–Togo relations stretch back to pre-independence days.
The North German Missionary Society or North German Mission is a Presbyterian Christian organisation based in Bremen formed on 19 April 1836 to unify missionary work in North Germany. The society has also been active among the Ewes in southeastern Gold Coast,now Ghana. The mission was engaged in New Zealand and India prior to concentrating its activities in Ghana from 1847.
Mawuli School is a co-educational,boarding senior high school located in Ho in the Ho Municipal district in the Volta Region of Ghana.
Bernice Adiku Heloo is a Ghanaian politician and was the former Member of Parliament for Hohoe Constituency.
Anselmus Kodzo Paaku Kludze was a Ghanaian lawyer,author and academic who served as a judge for the Supreme Court of Ghana and was also a professor. He was an Emeritus Professor of law at Rutgers University,Camden,New Jersey,United States,a chairman of the Law Reform Commission of Ghana,a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts,London.
The Ewe Unification Movement was a series of west African ethno-nationalist efforts which sought the unification of the Ewe peoples spread across what are now modern Ghana and Togo. It emerged as a direct political goal around 1945 under the colonial mandate of French Togoland,however the ideal of unifying the group has been an identifiable sentiment present amongst the ethnicity's leadership and wider population ever since their initial colonial partitions by the British and German Empires from 1874 to 1884. While there have been many efforts to bring about unification,none have ultimately been successful due to both the platform itself often being a secondary concern for political leadership,or inter/intrastate conflicts overshadowing them.
Ferdinand Koblavi Dra Goka (1919-2007) was a Ghanaian teacher and politician. He was a Volta Regional minister,and as Ghana's second finance minister during the first republic. He is often credited as the man who changed the name of Trans Volta Togoland to the Volta Region.
Bame is a village in the Ho West District of the Volta Region of Ghana.
The Western Togoland Rebellion is an ongoing separatist revolt led by the Ewe nationalist organization Western Togoland Restoration Front (WTRF) against the government of Ghana. The group seeks the independence of former British Togoland.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)