Mfantsipim mourns two favourite sons

Ambassador E.M. Debrah and Dr Joe Abbey

Appropriate quotations tend to incite many people to persevere. For some Mfantsipim alumni – rather than flattering the vanity – the quote by Rev R.A Lockhart, ignites a sense of pride and purpose. [He served as the headmaster from 1926 to 1936.]

During a particular speech day, he prophesied that, “In a few years the people of this country (the Gold Coast) will be amazed at the number of its influential citizens who owe allegiance to this school.”

For Rev Lockhart – the day Alex Quaison-Sackey (attired in a rich Kente cloth) sat in the United Nations dais in New York, in 1964, to preside over the General Assembly – his ghost must have nodded with knowing smiles. With the former school perfect’s spectacular presence in full glare, the African personality was at its peak. Mr Sackey was the first black African to hold that august position.

For many in the Mfantsipim fraternity, the historical link as custodians of a noble inheritance is deeply appreciated. Passed on through a proud genealogy, we refer to our alma mater as “The School”.

Another Lockhart protege, R.P. Baffour, was to become the first Ghanaian Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). Two other genial examples of the alumni included Ambassador E.M. Debrah (1928 – 2023) and Dr Joe Abbey (1940 – 2023).

I first met Ambassador Debrah in 2013 at a function to celebrate the 100^th birthday of our illustrious headmaster, Francis L. Bartels, at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. With the former secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, as the special guest, the event was organized by the F.L. Bartels Foundation chaired by Dr Andrew Arkutu (Moba 1955).

Dr Joe Abbey happened to be a member of the foundation including the late Prof Kwame Gyekye and Bob Yaasi, Ebow Essandoh, Dr Sylvia Boye, Carlin Bartels, and yours truly.

Dr Arkutu remembered young Abbey, his junior by two years, from Lockhart House. He described Abbey as an outstanding student: small in stature but with a large brain. He was recognised as destined for greater things by his sheer intellect.

Dr Arkutu’s memories of Amb Debrah stretches as far as Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Papua New Guinea where the ambassador trained their diplomats after their independence. He demonstrated himself as a distinguished ambassador. And as a natural born diplomat, Amb Debrah was soft spoken with a demeanour particularly suited for the work he was born to do.

It’s often said that truly successful people agree with sentiments that their career do not feel like work but rather something they love to do. That obsession seemed to fit the careers of both Ambassador Debrah and Dr Abbey as their brief profiles show:

Ambassador Debrah

Following his studies at the University College of the Gold Coast, E.M. Debrah joined the Gold Coast Information Services. He was with the first officers that formed the nucleus of the foreign cadets trained abroad to steer Ghana’s Foreign Missions after Ghana’s independence in 1957.

After his studies at the London School of Economics, he served in the Ministry of Defence, and External Affairs. Debrah was posted to the Ghana Embassy in Monrovia, Liberia as its first Secretary. In 1959, he served in the Embassy of Ghana in Cairo. A year later, he was a Counselor at the Embassy of Ghana in Washington, D.C. He returned to Ghana to now serve as the Director in Charge of Asia and Middle East Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 1965, Debrah was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Ethiopia, and later as Ghana’s ambassador to the United States of America.

In December 1973, he was made Secretary to the National Redemption Council and to the Supreme Military Council in 1975. In 1977 Debrah was appointed Ghana’s High Commissioner to Australia and a year later, Ghana’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom till 1980.

Dr Joe Abbey

After a bachelor’s degree from London School of Economics, young Abbey joined the Central Bureau of Statistics. Following his studies at the Iowa State University, Abbey joined the University of Ghana as a lecturer in economics, and later worked at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in New York as a research fellow.

In Ghana in 1974, he was appointed by the then Supreme Military Council (SMC) government to serve in the Economic Planning Commission while doubling as a government statistician. Following the retirement of Robert K. A. Gardiner in May 1978, Abbey was appointed Commissioner for Economic Planning (now Finance and Economic Planning).

He later became the chairman of the Premier Bank and an economic consultant for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

In June 1983 he became the Executive Secretary of the Policy Monitoring and Implementation Committee, and acting Secretary for Trade in the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) government.

On 6 March 1984, he was appointed Ghana’s High Commissioner to Canada and held that post until he was made Ghana’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. In 1990 he was appointed Ghana’s Ambassador to the United States of America. He served in this capacity until 1994.