SEKYI, WILLIAM ESSUMAN-GWIRA

William Essuman-Gwira Sekyi (November 1, 1892-October 5, 1956), popularly known as Kobina Sekyi, was one of the outstanding Gold Coast nationalists of the second and third decades of the 20th century. He was also president of the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society (A.R.P.S.) from 1927 to the time of its political extinction in the 1950s.

He was born in 1892. His father was William Gladstone Sackey (i.e. Sekyi anglicised), and his mother was Madam Amba Paaba. He was educated at the Cape Coast Wesleyan Primary School, and at Mfantsipim School in Cape Coast, which he entered in May 1905. In 1907 he and seven other pupils were left without a teacher, and therefore decided to teach themselves, until the Rev. W. T. Balmer, during a visit to the Gold Coast as inspector of Wesleyan schools, decided to stay and teach in Mfantsipim. Balmer called the pupils “The Faithful Eight”.

Sekyi left Mfantsipim as a student in 1908 but taught there till 1910, when he went to University College, London, to read for an honours degree in philosophy. He graduated in 1914. In 1915 he had to leave Britain because his uncle, Charles Pieterson, who had sent him to study there, died. Upon his return home, he watched the social and political scene, joined social clubs, and did some writing, but took no job. When J. E. Casely Hayford, the nationalist politician, founded the Gold Coast Research Association in Sekondi in 1915, a Cape Coast branch was established under the leadership of Sekyi and J. C. de Graft Johnson. It held its inaugural public meeting in November 1915, and its proceedings were in Fante.

The aim was utopian, for it sought: “to eliminate the white man’s standpoint from the black man’s outlook; to restore national respect and self-confidence by observing only native custom, and reconstructing the native state before the disintegrating foreign element intruded or insinuated itself into it”. It was this attitude of mind which led the A.R.P.S. to suggest a constitution which would make the society representative of the people of the Gold Coast. They found few supporters, however, although Sekyi held fast to his view to the end of his life.

In 1918 another uncle, Henry Van Hien, sent him back to London University to take a master’s degree in philosophy. He was afterwards made a member of the Aristotelian Society, taking part in its meetings and discussions. He also studied law at the Inner Temple, and was called to the Bar in 1919. In the same year he returned to the Gold Coast and entered private practice.

Kobina Sekyi became a prolific writer and a social reformer. When, during World War I, the African intelligentsia of the Gold Coast had begun to question the practice of aping European ways, and instead urged Africans to remain Africans, Sekyi had published articles on ‘The Anglo-Fanti’ in the local papers, describing their habits.

These articles were reproduced in the British publication West Africa, in 1918. In the same year, he wrote to the Gold Coast Nation to explain that he used the name Kobina, rather than the names William Essuman-Gwira, “only when there is no need to indicate either my academic or my professional status”.

He also contributed to the Gold Coast Nation (1918) and the Gold Coast Times (1924) urging his countrymen to abandon the “average whiteman’s outlook”. To practise what he preached, he usually appeared in public in the Akan toga. He also wrote a play on the manners and habits of the Europeanised Fante, entitled The Blinkards. This was not published until 1974 and has since been acted in Ghana.

When he returned home to the Gold Coast, the influence of Marcus Garvey, the charismatic Jamaican who had promoted the “Back-to-Africa” movement in the United States after World War I, had spread among the intelligentsia. The moment was propitious for him to lead the fight against the racial discrimination being practiced by the colonial establishment. He wanted Africans to avoid any friendly contacts with Europeans, and published newspaper articles on “Our White Friends,” in which he commented on the arrogance of the white men, and urged non-fraternisation with white government officials. These articles were published in West Africa in 1925.

He joined the National Congress of British West Africa, and was one of its assistant secretaries during its inauguration in Accra in March 1920. He was also a member of the executive of the A.R.P.S., and joined in the fight against the Native Jurisdiction Ordinance of 1922 and the Native Administration Ordinance of 1924.

When some of his contemporaries, such as J. E. Casely Hayford, J. Glover Addo, and Dr. F. V. Nanka Bruce, decided to serve in the legislature established by Governor Sir Gordon Guggisberg  [term of office 1919-27], and accepted the formation of the Provincial Councils after they had led the opposition to both institutions, Kobina Sekyi attacked them. In the Gold Coast Times, in April and May 1927, he criticised them for their servile habit of mind in associating with the government during what he regarded as a state of war.

After Casely Hayford had entered the Legislative Council as the municipal member for Sekondi in 1927, the A.R.P.S., under Sekyi’s presidency, sent a petition to the governor in February 1928 protesting against the Native Administration Ordinance. The petition did not, however, achieve anything.

The A.R.P.S. therefore resorted to intimidating chiefs who wanted to attend the Provincial Councils and for a time succeeded in preventing some of them from taking their seats. But the government managed to weather the storm, and the majority of chiefs were attracted by the allowances paid to them to sit on the Councils. By the end of 1928, therefore, the opposition had collapsed in the Western, Central, and Eastern Provinces. Sekyi also opposed the Supreme Court Ordinance, which gave district commissioners judicial powers. He called their courts “strange courts, presided over by non-professional political officers”.

In 1934 the A.R.P.S. sent its own delegation to England to protest against the Sedition Bill and other enactments of the colonial administration, but did not achieve anything. After Dr. J. B. Danquah had formed the Gold Coast Youth Conference, the political scene became dominated by younger men, and Kobina Sekyi lost much of his influence. But he continued to undertake some public service.

He was a member of the Gorman Commission of 1947, which the Gold Coast government appointed to investigate a mine-employees’ strike. He served on the Coussey Committee on Constitutional Reform in 1949; whose report represented a giant step forward towards self-government for the Gold Coast. He was also one of the first members of the Council of the University College of the Gold Coast, serving from 1948-51.

He had served on the Achimota College Council before World War II, after the A.R.P.S. had abandoned its opposition to the government-sponsored college, located near Accra. He was also a member of the board of governors of St. Nicholas Grammar School, now Adisadel College.

He died on October 5, 1956, less than six months before the coming of the independence he had worked to promote. He was an implacable adversary whose pet subject was “Thinking in English” a feat he thought was possible for only native Englishmen. Although he was an intellectual whose articles were generally difficult for others to follow, he became in his lifetime a symbol of the viewpoint he held.

L. H. OFOSU-APPIAH