Komla Agbeli Gbedemah

Komla Agbeli Gbedemah (17 June 1913 – 11 July 1998) was a Ghanaian politician and Minister for Finance in Ghana's Nkrumah government between 1954 and 1961. Known popularly as "Afro Gbede", he was an indigene of Anyako in the Volta Region of Ghana.

Early life and career Komla Gbedemah was born on 17 June 1913 in Warri, Nigeria, of Ewe parentage. He attended Adisadel College in Cape Coast for his secondary education from 1925 to 1929 and Achimota College from 1929 to 1933. He became employed as a teacher at a school in the Akuapem District in The Gold Coast. In 1939, he became a Science Master at Accra Academy in Jamestown. Alongside teaching, he engaged in the timber and confectionery business. In 1943, he quit his teaching role at Accra Academy to engage in the timber trade full-time.

Political career

Gbedemah was originally a member of the United Gold Coast Convention. He left with Dr Kwame Nkrumah to form the Convention People's Party (CPP). Gbedemah was an important member of the CPP because of his organizational ability. He was influential in getting Nkrumah elected to the Legislative council on 8 February 1951 at the Elections for the Legislative Assembly. He organized Nkrumah's entire campaign while Nkrumah was still in prison, detained by the colonial government. Nkrumah duly won the Accra Central Municipal seat. This led to Nkrumah being released on 12 February 1951 and his being invited to form a government. Gbedemah is in some reports named as being the first to welcome Nkrumah after his release from Fort James prison.

Gbedemah, who himself got elected into the Legislative Assembly, became the first Ghanaian Minister for Health and Labour in Nkrumah's government. In 1954, he became the Minister of Finance, a position he held for seven years. He was influential in getting an initially reluctant United States government to back the building of the Akosombo Dam. Later, as his relationship with Nkrumah deteriorated, Gbedemah was demoted by Nkrumah to the post of Minister of Health in May 1961. He is alleged to have fled as there were plans to place him under preventive detention. While in exile, he is known to have continued to lobby the US over the Akosombo Dam project. His campaign slogan "Say it loud, I am black and proud!" was taken from the popular James Brown tune.

From 1957 to 1961, Gbedemah served as President of the World Federalist Movement, an international non-governmental organization promoting federal world government. He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a world constitution. As a result, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

Howard Johnson's restaurant incident In the United States, Gbedemah is most widely known from an incident on 10 October 1957 when U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologized to him after he was refused service in a Howard Johnson's restaurant in Dover, Delaware. Gbedemah told the staff: "The people here are of a lower social status than I am, but they can drink here and we can't. You can keep the orange juice and the change, but this is not the last you have heard of this." The incident resulted in Gbedemah being invited to breakfast at the White House.