Tetteh Quarshie - the foundation of Ghana's economy

Accra, Aug. 28, GNA - An annual Tetteh Quarshie memorial lecture has been launched with a call for the establishment of a school in his name at Osu.

Tetteh Quarshie first brought cocoa seeds from Fernando Po, Equatorial Guinea, to Ghana.

Dr Nii Amu Darku, a Medical Practitioner based in Sydney, Australia, said the history of Tetteh Quarshie in contemporary Ghana is unparalleled.

He said the Osu Traditional Council has conferred on Tetteh Quarshie a posthumous title 'Shitse' (the foundational father) of Ghana and an award of a doctorate in Agronomy.

Dr Nii Darku said the man was an extraordinary visionary and divinely sent to a country which otherwise would have been desperately poor.

'Even with cocoa we have, look how poor we are? Try to imagine Ghana without cocoa and you will agree with me that if Nile is Egypt and Egypt is the Nile, then cocoa is Ghana and Ghana is cocoa,' he said.

Dr Nii Darku said this: 'Is not about a relative singing the praises of his ancestor. It is about the single idea and the single energy from one man upon which this country was built'.

He said Tetteh Quarshie saved Ghana's economy but now it is in shambles; 'we are begging everybody for loans we may not be able to pay back. We need a new Tetteh Quarshie to change the game.

'The independence that we got is now in tatters, everybody is telling us what to do,' adding that the Wulomei song says 'did our ancestors sell us into slavery before they died?

Dr Nii Darku said the restoration of Ghana would depend on a new political kingdom, a system totally different from the present one.

He said the political system needed contributions from all Ghanaians including those from the diasporas and called on Nii Okwei Kinka Dowuona VI, the Paramount Chief and President of the Osu Traditional Council, to lead in the movement.

Dr Nii Darku described Tetteh Quarshie as a man of many parts flexible, humble, insightful, observant, determined, patriotic, spiritual, astute businessman and a visionary.

He said Tetteh Quarshie was a blacksmith and left for the journey of destiny to Fernando Po in 1870 at the age of 28 to buy coaltar and worked there as a farm-hand for six years and changed his mission to cocoa farming.

Nii Dowuona, who was the Chairman for the occasion, said: 'Anyone who climbs a good tree needs a push,' and therefore he is ever ready to lead in the new movement to facelift the communities of the Osu Traditional Area.

He said already the Traditional Council has set in motion the establishment of an Educational Trust Fund to support school-going children in Osu, saying 'what we are doing will be there for generations because Tetteh Quarshie was a single person who toiled to bring cocoa to Ghana but the entire nation is enjoying the fruits'.

Tetteh Quarshie was born in 1842 at Osu Ashante (Ashongfio We) where he built a house for the mother who was from La and the father Mlekuboi from Teshie in the Greater Accra Region. He died at the age of 50 on December 25, 1892.

'Before I left this country in 1995, I went to Ogbedee-nyÉ› Desa the last of the matriarchs in Ashongfio's line who told me the story and recorded everything about the family, which essentially is the story of Tetteh Quarshie,' he said.

GNA