Franklin Adubobi Jantuah, the only surviving cabinet member of Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah has passed on.
He died on Monday, 27th January 2020 according to his family.
He was a lawyer and served in Rawling’s Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC).
He also served as a Minister of Agriculture and Local Government in the Nkrumah and PNDC regimes respectively.
The late politician was the father of the late Kojo Svedstrup Jantuah, a Ghanaian and author of Odyssey to Elsinore: Reconciliation with the Past in Order to Move Forward.
The former politician who obtained his pharmacy certificate at Korle-Bu Dispensing School in 1948 also attended the Adisadel College, Cape Coast from 1945 to 1947.
He had his early education at the English Church Mission School in Kumasi and the Asante College from 1943 to 1944 also in Kumasi.
He then continued his education at the London Tutorial College and the University of London from 1956 to 1959.
Mr. Jantuah was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in London where he began his legal practice in 1960.
He entered Parliament in 1965 on the ticket of Ejisu constituency during the first republic.
He was appointed Minister for Agriculture on June 13 that same year; a position he occupied until the overthrow of Nkrumah’s government in February 1966.
He was a leading member of the People’s Movement for Freedom and Justice (PMFJ), a political group that opposed the Union Government (Unigov) idea that was proposed by Ignatius Kutu Acheampong and his government.
Mr. Jantuah then became the Ashanti Regional Minister in the PNDC regime and in 1984 he was appointed as Local Government Minister after serving as the chairman of the Kumasi City Council in 1983.
In 1986, he was relieved of his duties on health grounds.