William Emmanuel Abraham, also known as Willie E. Abraham or, to give his
day name, Kojo Abraham (born on Monday, 28 May 1934), is a retired Ghanaian philosopher.
Biography
Abraham was educated at the Government Boys' School and
Adisadel Secondary School in
Cape Coast, Ghana
Cape Coast is a city, fishing port, and the capital of Cape Coast Metropolitan District and Central Region of Ghana. It is one of the country's most historic cities, a World Heritage Site, home to the Cape Coast Castle, with the Gulf of Guinea ...
. He obtained a BA from the
University of Ghana, graduating with first-class honours in philosophy in 1957.
Travelling to England to study at
Oxford University, he received a B.Phil. and was the first African to be elected a Fellow of
All Souls College.
[Department of Philosophy & Classics, University of Ghana]
/ref> In 1960 he was nominated to be a Governor of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
.
On his return to Ghana in 1962 he joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ghana, and published his book ''The Mind of Africa'', a philosophical work arguing for Pan-Africanism
Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous and diaspora peoples of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement exte ...
. He was elected vice-president of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences
The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) is a learned society for the arts and sciences based in Accra, Ghana. The institution was founded in November 1959 by Kwame Nkrumah with the aim to promote the pursuit, advancement and dissemination ...
in 1963, in that capacity visiting scientific facilities in the Soviet Union in a seven-week tour in the summer of 1963. He became a close associate of Kwame Nkrumah, collaborating on Nkrumah's work ''Consciencism'', published in 1964.[ Abraham replaced Conor Cruise O'Brien as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana in September 1965.] He also chaired a commission that reported in 1964 on "alleged irregularities and malpractices in connection with the issue of import licences", and was a non-resident lecturer in African Studies at the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute The Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute (officially known as the Kwame Nkrumah Institute of Economics and Political Science or Winneba ideological Institute) was an educational body in Winneba, founded to promote socialism in Ghana as well as the de ...
from 1963 until its closure in 1966.
It was Willie Abraham, not Nkrumah, who wrote the book, ''Consciencism''. Soon after the book was first published in 1964, the people who knew Nkrumah and Willie Abraham said it was Abraham, not Nkrumah who wrote the book. As Ama Biney stated in her doctoral thesis, ''Kwame Nkrumah: An Intellectual Biography'':
"There is considerable speculation that Nkrumah was not the writer of this book and rather Prof. William Abraham was instead the author....The impenetrable style of writing is unlike that of Nkrumah's other more accessible works." – (Ama B. Biney, ''Kwame Nkrumah: An Intellectual Biography'', doctoral thesis, University of London, 2007, p. 231).
Identified as "Nkrumah's court philosopher", Abraham was arrested in the 1966 coup which established Joseph Arthur Ankrah
Joseph Arthur Ankrah Born (18 August 1915 – 25 November 1992) was a Ghanaian army general who was the head of state of Ghana from 1966 to 1969 in the position of Chairman of the National Liberation Council. Before becoming head of state, Ankra ...
as president. He emigrated to the United States and held academic positions at Macalaster College and the University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge ...
, where he is currently Professor Emeritus of Philosophy. He has had a life-long interest in the life and work of the eighteenth-century Ghanaian philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo
Anton Wilhelm Amo or Anthony William Amo (c. 1703 – c. 1759) was an African philosopher originally from what is now Ghana. Amo was a professor at the universities of Halle and Jena in Germany after studying there. He was brought to Germany by ...
.
Works
* ''The Mind of Africa'', Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1962
* "Ideologies in Contemporary Africa", '' The Ghanaian Times'', 7, 11, 21, 24 December 1963.
* "Political Education is Essential", ''The Ghanaian Times'', 24 October 1964.
* "The Life and Times of Wilhelm Anton Amo", ''Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana'', vol. 7 (1964), pp. 60–81.
* "The Role of the Press in the Transition to Socialism", pp. 43–51 in W.M. Sulemann-Sibidow, ''The African Journalist'' ( Winneba: Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute The Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute (officially known as the Kwame Nkrumah Institute of Economics and Political Science or Winneba ideological Institute) was an educational body in Winneba, founded to promote socialism in Ghana as well as the de ...
, 1965).
* Speech at the launching of Kwame Nkrumah, ''Neo-colonialism: the last stage of imperialism'', ''The Spark'', no. 161, 19 November 1965.
* "Kwame Relies on the Masses", ''The Nkrumaist'', vol. 4 no. 1 (January 1966), pp. 11–14.
References
External links
Speeches at the launching of ''Consciencism'', 2 April 1964
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abraham, William Emmanuel
1934 births
Living people
Alumni of All Souls College, Oxford
Ghanaian philosophers
University of Ghana alumni