Kobina Sekyi
Kobina Sekyi | |
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| Member of the National Congress of British West Africa | |
| President of the Aborigines' Rights Protection Society | |
| Preceded by | Henry van Hien |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1 November 1892 Cape Coast, Gold Coast |
| Died | 20 June 1956 (aged 63) |
William Esuman-Gwira Sekyi, better known as Kobina Sekyi (1 November 1892, Cape Coast – 20 June 1956), was a nationalist lawyer, politician and writer in the Gold Coast.[1]
Biography[]
Sekyi was the son of John Gladstone Sackey, headmaster of the Wesleyan School in Cape Coast, who was himself the son of Chief Kofi Sekyi, the Chief Regent of Cape Coast [2] and Wilhelmina Pietersen, also known as Amba Paaba, daughter of Willem Essuman Pietersen (c.1844–1914), an Elmina-Cape Coast businessman and one-time President of the Aborigines' Rights Protection Society (ARPS), a later president of which was Sekyi's uncle, Henry van Hien, whose heir Sekyi was.[3]
Sekyi was educated at Mfantsipim School and studied philosophy at the University of London, accompanied to Britain by his maternal grandfather. He had originally wanted to become an engineer like his mother's younger brother, J. B. Essuman-Gwira, but because his family controlled the purse strings and they wished him to study law, that was the career he entered. He was called to the Bar from the Inner Temple in 1918. Sekyi became a lawyer in private practice in the Gold Coast. He was president of the Aborigines' Rights Protection Society, an executive member of the National Congress of British West Africa, and member of the Coussey Committee for constitutional change. He married Lilly Anna Cleanand, daughter of John Peter Cleanand and Elizabeth Vroom.[3]
Sekyi was popular as the first educated elite appearing in a colonial court in Ghanaian cloth "ntoma" as a lawyer. It is believed he vowed never to wear European clothes as totally African.[1]
He died in Cape Coast, on 20 June 1956.
Works[]
Sekyi's comedy The Blinkards (1915) [4] satirised the acceptance by a colonised society of the attitudes of the colonisers.[5] His novel The Anglo-Fante was the first English-language novel written in the Cape Coast.
Notes[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b "Kobina Sekyi, Lawyer-Vowed Never to wear European Cloth:The Blinkards". Ghanaian Museum. 14 January 2020. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
- ^ Daniel Mile McFarland, Historical Dictionary of Ghana, 1985, p. 160.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Michael R. Doortmont, The Pen-Pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities by Charles Francis Hutchison: A Collective Biography of Elite Society in the Gold Coast Colony, Brill, 2005, p. 394.
- ^ Sekyi, Kobina (1974). The Blinkards: A Comedy. BRILL. ISBN 978-0-435-90436-4.
- ^ "The Blinkards". Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 31 December 2009.
References[]
- Kofi Baku, "Kobina Sekyi of Ghana: An Annotated Bibliography of His Writings", The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 24:2, 1991
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- 1892 births
- 1956 deaths
- Ghanaian lawyers
- Ghanaian dramatists and playwrights
- Members of the Inner Temple
- 20th-century dramatists and playwrights
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- Mfantsipim School alumni
- 20th-century lawyers
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