5 wives, 36 children: Meet Baffour Osei Akoto, father of current Agric Minister

The late Baffour Osei Akoto is celebrated as a statesman and traditionalist who stood up against the excesses of the Nkrumah government and formed the National Liberation Movement which rivaled Nkrumah’s CPP in pre-independent Ghana and the first few years after independence.

His arrest, trial, imprisonment, and subsequent re-trial under the Preventive Detention Act in 1958, birthed the famous RE-Akoto case which has become a feature of Ghana’s legal education regime and is marked every year by persons who subscribe to the NLM and UP ideology.

Baffour Akoto was an Ashanti chief and a linguist of then Asantehene, Osei Tutu Agyeman Prempeh II.

As a traditionalist who was also a Catholic, Baffour Osei Akoto, according to his daughter, Okyeame-ba Obaa Penyin Rita Akoto, married five women with all the unions producing thirty-six children.

Rita Akoto told Adom-Otchere that “We were 36 children. He married about five and all five had more than one child. As a chief, he inherited some wives but didn’t have children with all of them. Women liked him because he was a very handsome man. He made a lot of sacrifices to the detriment of us.”

Describing her father, Rita Akoto said “an emotional, candid and honest man who prioritized the well-being of others.”

She added that, unlike politicians who are most of the time not honest with the public, her father was always candid and honest.

“He didn’t want to be a president or MP. He supported others but he never sought a post. As far as I’m concerned, a politician seeks a post. Their vision is to win an election and be in the post. A leader helps others to get there.

“I believe that my father was an advocate because politicians also don’t speak the truth. Because people say they give a lot of promises and don’t follow up with it. They always have to think about their opponents and voters and all that.

“He never actually thought about that. All he wanted was to ensure that the next generation would live in a better world. He was that sort of man. He was very emotional,” she said.

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Among the thirty-six children of Baffour Akoto is Ghana’s current Agric Minister, Owusu Afriyie Akoto.