Ghana has gained global recognition in the journey of tech, innovation, and development. It is tremendous how some Ghanaian men and women have exhibited purpose, heroism and knowledge in bringing into reality golden achievements in the history of Ghana. Today, we will dive into some of the Ghanaian trendsetters in the Ghanaian history.
Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah was the first Prime Minister and President of Ghana. He led the Gold Coast, now Ghana to independence from the British in 1957. Kwame Nkrumah is one of the astute political theorists, pan-Africanist, and revolutionary that ever graced the African continent. The achievements, accomplishments, and exploits that were made in his era bear witness to the degree and the level of leadership qualities that he displayed. Nkrumah was a visionary and a patriotic leader. He mission was to develop, transform and restore the dignity that was lost as a result of slavery and colonialism and to liberate the African continent from colonial decay. Decades after his death, the torch Nkrumah lit in Africa continues to burn.
Melody Millicent Danquah
Melody Millicent Danquah was a Ghanaian pilot and the first female pilot in Africa. She received her ‘Wings’ qualifying her as a pilot in 1965. Melody Danquah was born in Larteh Akuapem, on 6 January 1937 to Ibinijah Rexford Addo-Danquah, who was the illustrious Court Registrar and Arbitrator of Larteh and Selina Gyamfi her mother. Danquah was the sixth of ten siblings. Danquah was educated at the Methodist Primary and Middle schools in Larteh and Wesley Girls High School in Cape Coast.
She was chosen among the first three women towards the end of 1963 to be trained in the Ghana Air Force as pilots. She successfully made the grade and the subsequent basic military training at the Ghana Military Academy. On 22 June 1964, Flt. Cadet Danquah flew solo for the first time in a de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk aircraft, becoming the first Ghanaian woman ever to fly an airplane solo.
Alice Annum
Before the former Ghanaian football captain, Asamoah Gyan assumed the nickname “Baby Jet,” there was a Ghanaian female athlete who bore that name. Alice Annum was a Ghanaian sprinter and the first woman to represent Ghana at the Olympics. Born in 1948 in Accra, Alice hit her best time at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, in the 200 metres, finishing in 22.89 seconds. She won gold at the 1965 All Africa Games (long jump) in Brazzaville and added another silver at the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Scotland where she came by the name ‘Baby Jet’ after her outstanding performance.
She also swept silver medals in both 100 meters and 200-meter races, before adding bronze in the 200-meter section of the 1974 Commonwealth Games in New Zealand. With her hard work ethics and consistency, Alice appeared in three successive Olympic Games in 1964 (Tokyo), 1968 (Mexico City) and 1972 (Munich). Alice Annum was honoured by the Action Progressive Institute in Ghana in 2010.
John Mensah Sarbah
John Mensah Sarbah was the first lawyer entirely of Gold Coast descent. He was called to the English bar in 1887. Mensah Sarbah was born on June 3 1864 in Anomabu, Cape Coast. He was the eldest son of John Sarbah, a merchant and his wife Sarah. He attended Cape Coast Wesleyan School, which was later renamed as “Mfantsipim” which means the ‘Soul of the People.’ He studied law at Lincoln’s Inn in London in 1884 and qualified as a barrister in 1887 being the first African from the Gold Coast to gain this qualification.
Mensah Sarbah became known for defending the rights of Africans against British colonial authorities. He helped form the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society (ARPS) which opposed the Land Bill of 1897 that threatened the traditional system of African land tenure which was led by Mensah Sarbah himself. When the governor Sir William Maxwell refused to redraw the bill, Sarbah went to London in 1898 and succeeded in getting the Lands Bill redrawn.
Professor Francis Allotey
Professor Allotey was a renowned Ghanaian mathematical physicist and the first Ghanaian to obtain a doctorate in Mathematical Sciences in 1966. He became the first Ghanaian Full Professor in Mathematics in 1973 at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. He was ultimately appointed as the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the university in 1978. He postulated the “Allotey Formalism Theory” from his work on Soft X-Ray Spectroscopy. The Allotey Formalism Theory is the technique used to determine matter in outer space. He received the Prince Philip Gold Medal Award in 1973.
Prof. Francis Allotey held various leadership positions for the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Mathematical Association of Ghana, the Ghana Institute of Physics and he played a key role in establishing the University of Energy and Natural Resources in the Brong Ahafo Region.
Charles Odamtten Easmon
Charles Odamtten Easmon was the first Ghanaian to qualify as a surgeon specialist and the first Dean of the University of Ghana Medical School. Easmon performed the first successful open-heart surgery in Ghana in 1964, and modern scholars credit him as the “Father of Cardiac Surgery in West Africa.” Easmon was the first Ghanaian to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
In 1960, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah appointed Easmon as the Chief Medical Officer of Ghana which he assumed the role in September 1962. He worked at Korle Bu Hospital in Accra and was eventually put in charge of the hospital. Easmon was an active member and founder of the Osu Medical Association. He was also elected as a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as the president of the Academy from 1977 to 1980. He designed the logo of the Ghana Medical Association.
Easmon was awarded a Grand Medal by the Ghanaian government in 1968 and received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Cape Coast. The College of Health Sciences dedicated its building to the memory of Easmon in 2012. The University of Ghana Medical School also presents the “Charles Easmon Prize in Surgery” to the best medical student in surgery. A medical ward at the 37 Military Hospital in Accra was named after Easmon.
Theodore S. Clerk
Theodore Shealtiel Clerk was the first formally trained, professionally certified Ghanaian architect. Theodore Clerk became the chief architect, city planner, designer and developer of Tema, which is the metropolis of the Tema Harbour, the largest port in Ghana.
Clerk became the first chief executive officer (CEO) of the Tema Development Corporation and the first president of the first post-independent, wholly indigenous and self-governing Ghanaian professional body, the Ghana Institute of Architects (GIA) that had its early beginnings in 1963. He was also an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Royal Town Planning Institute.
He is best known for his work in the port city of Tema. Commissioned by President Kwame Nkrumah, he designed and built affordable housing for low-income dockworkers at the harbour. The harbour serves both as a loading and unloading port for goods. It also serves as a major transit point for goods from landlocked countries to the north of Ghana and handles trade for industrial and commercial companies that import and export various goods such as petroleum, cement, food, metals, and textiles.
Benjamin William Quarteyquaye Quartey-Papafio
Benjamin William Quarteyquaye Quartey-Papafio was a politician and physician who became the first Ghanaian to obtain a medical degree and the first to practice as an orthodox-trained physician. Quartey-Papafio earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Durham University and later enrolled at the Edinburg University in 1882 as a medical student, earning his Bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery and Master of Surgery in 1886 and becoming a member of the Royal College of Surgeons.
Quartey-Papafio became a medical officer for the Gold Coast Government Service in 1888 and was also in private practice. He also became a member of the Accra Town Council as well as a member of the 1913 deputation to London which protested the Forest Bill.
David Kotei
David Kotei, popularly known as “D.K. Poison,” was the first Ghanaian professional boxer to win a world title. In September 1975, in California, Kotey became the first Ghanaian World Champion in boxing. He defeated Rueben Olivares by a split decision, to win World Boxing Council title. Kotey was born on 7th December 1950 in Accra, Ghana. He started his amateur career at Bukom a suburb in Accra. Bukom is well known for producing the finest Ghanaian boxers and Kotey is no exception.
Under his trainer Attuquaye Clottey, Kotey became a professional boxer winning his first bout on the 5th February 1966 in Accra where he outpointed his opponent over six rounds. He became the national featherweight champion that year. Although he fought once in neighbouring Togo in 1967, all his subsequent fights through to 1971 were in Ghana.
He became the national featherweight champion in 1966 and won the African featherweight title on 2 February 1974 when he knocked out Tahar Ben Hassen in the first round of a scheduled 15 round fight in Tunis. Kotey hinted that he took inspiration from Floyd Robertson, one of the nation’s greatest boxers who was robbed of the opportunity of becoming a world champion in a fight with Sugar Ramos of Cuba.
Ave Kludze Jnr
Ave Kludze is the first Ghanaian, if not the first African to ever command a spacecraft into orbit for NASA from a mission control center. Ave Kludze is a Ghanaian aerospace engineer and civil servant. He is a senior NASA Spacecraft Systems Engineer specializing in complex systems engineering and design. Ave became the first Ghanaian to ever command and control a Spacecraft in Orbit from a mission control center.
He also designed the Human Locator System, which uses a combination of nanotechnology, satellite communications, and GPS to locate a subject anywhere in the world. In 2004, Kludze and a group of NASA engineers developed the Extravehicular Activity Infrared camera for space-walking astronauts. The camera was designed to fulfill a critical inspection need for the Shuttle Program.
Solomon Quainoo
Solomon Quainoo is the first Ghanaian Captain to fly the world’s largest passenger aircraft, Emirates’ Airbus A380 from Dubai to Accra on October 2, 2018, in a one-off flight to commemorate the opening of the Kotoka International Airport’s Terminal 3 facility. Captain Quainoo was born in Ghana but later moved to the UK to live with his family. He had his secondary school education at Koforidua Senior High Technical School in the Eastern Region and furthered at the University of Ghana where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics, Physics, and Geology.
He obtained a Master’s degree in Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from the Kingston University in London and trained as a pilot at the Oxford Aviation Training school, United Kingdom, which was where he obtained his license. He has spent the last seven years with Emirates serving as a first officer before being promoted to captain.
Quainoo still remembers the first time he saw an aeroplane and said to himself he will become a pilot. Even though people laughed at him because he didn’t have the means at that time, he was still determined. He would go to the extent of wearing gloves just because he saw military pilots wearing their gloves. Today he is a living testimony that everything is possible.
Dave Chief Quansah Acheampong
Eight-year-old Dave Chief Quansah Acheampong of the Jack and Jill School in Accra is the first Ghanaian to win the Africa Under-9 Chess Champion Competition in the African Schools Individual Chess Championship 2020.
The five-day tournament saw 105 players from various countries in the continent including Kenya, Uganda, Botswana, South Africa, Egypt, Angola, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Morocco competing in different age categories: Under 9 years, Under 11 years, Under 13, Under 15 and Under 17years.
Dave started the tournament with a win in the 1st round and suffered 3 losses in subsequent rounds. Despite, his losses, Dave came back to win every game in the remaining 5 rounds of the tournament, finishing with 6 points out of 9 to grasp first place prize ahead of top favorites: Mohammed Hossam Adham from Egypt and Rannveer Tak from South Africa. It came as a surprise to many in the Ghana Chess Association although Dave is believed to be a promising and talented young player. His father, Mr. David Acheampong explained that Dave was introduced to Chess at age four and has since shown love for the game.
For his prize, he was awarded a certificate and a roundtrip economy class air ticket by the Confederation to represent Africa in the World Schools Individual Chess Championships to be held in Greece at Halkidiki. “The boy wants to be a chess grandmaster in the near future. It has become imperative for the young prodigy to maintain his consistency in his chess hobby and therefore, will need all the support going forward,” said his father Mr. Acheampong.
