Meet the first indigenous African ordained as pastor on Ghana soil, Rev T.H.K Opoku

Theophilus Herman Kofi Opoku (1842 – 7 July 1913) A native Akan linguist, translator, philologist, educator and missionary.

Born in 1842 at Akropong-Akuapem, Gold Coast (now Ghana). Parented by Nana Yaw Darko (linguist to the paramount chief of Akuapem “Okuapehene”) and Nana Akua Korantema (Mother).

Opoku’s father died when he was young being a grandson to the paramount chief of Akuapem (Okuapehene) Nana Addo Dankwa I, he was raised in the palace.

During his childhood, he was often weak and frail.

While playing outside his home one day, Opoku broke his leg and suffered multiple fractures and had to be taken to a bone-setter at Larteh-Akuapem for treatment. His health improved eventually.

In 1851, he was admitted at Basel Mission Primary School, Akropong-Akuapem, where his intellect became evident.

In 1852, he also became the houseboy to Basel missionary Rev. J. Mader. Opoku considered household chores to be demeaning and detested all forms of corporal punishment which was common at the time.

Pietistic discipline and organisation was a hallmark of the Basel mission educational experience. In his view, only indentured labourers and domestic slaves deserved that kind of punishment.

On 6 January 1856, he was eventually baptised and enrolled in the Basel Mission Seminary at Akropong-Akuapem in 1858 where he studied Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Dogmatics, Homiletics, Theology and Pedagogy in the rigorous programme.

Opoku was diagnosed with a heart-related ailment and his health rapidly deteriorated thereafter. He was sent to a native herbalist at Adenya, a village near Akropong for a year-and-a-half and went back intermittently for further treatment. As part of his treatment, the herbalist apparently forbade him from drinking water for five months.

Despite improvement in his condition, Opoku was forced to abandon his studies as a result of the affliction.

After leaving the seminary halfway through his studies, he became a pupil teacher at Basel Mission School (Presbyterian School) at Mamfe-Akuapem.

His heart condition interrupted his work and he was assigned to a less strenuous role as a catechist at Larteh, Akuapem.

According to historical accounts, he correctly predicted that a thunderstorm could lead to the fall of a silk cotton tree, “onyaa” or “onyina” near the shrine of the fetish priest at Akonedi in Larteh. The fetish priest rebuffed Opoku, stating that the tree had been there for centuries and never killed his ancestors. This event happened as foretold by Opoku and the fetish priest was killed.

The people came to regard him as a “seer” and converted in masses to Christianity leading to the flourishing of his ministry.

On 1 September 1872, Theophilus Opoku was ordained a minister of the Basel mission by Johann G. Widmann, making him the first indigenous African to be ordained a pastor on Gold Coast soil by the Basel Mission.

Through his Christian ministry, he went to many towns and villages including a visit to the Togoland and the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast in 1877.

He carried out ethnographic research in Salaga and his observations were captured in his diary which were ultimately published in the Christian Messenger in Basel, Switzerland in 1884.

His accounts include everyday life of the Gonja people, the practice of Islam and the trans-Saharan slave trade.

After he returned from Salaga, he contracted smallpox. During his sickness, he composed a Christian hymn, “Ohoho ne mamfrani na meye wo fam ha” meaning “I am a stranger and sojourner in this earth”, a song which is sung at Presbyterian funerals in Ghana and is allusion to his journey to Salaga.

In 1877, he was transferred to Kukurantumi in Akyem Abuakwa after recovering from the disease.

In 1909, the Local Committee of the Basel Mission held a meeting at Aburi-Akuapem and appointed Opoku a member of the committee, making him the first African to serve in that role.

However, he declined the offer to due to ill-health and impending retirement.

He retired from active church work in 1911 at the age of 69.

On 6 July 1913, Opoku suddenly fell ill during a visit to his cocoa farm at Suhyen, Koforidua, Gold Coast (Ghana) and died on his way to Akropong-Akuapem.

Theophilus Herman Kofi Opoku worked closely with the German missionary and philologist Johann Gottlieb Christaller as well as fellow native Akan linguists, David Asante (his cousin), Jonathan Palmer Bekoe, and Paul Staudt Keteku in the translation of the Bible into the Akuapem-Twi dialect of the Akan language.