5. Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey

• Obetsebi-Lamptey’s fervour for Independence was only surpassed by Nkrumah’s, leading to him earning the nickname ‘Liberty Lamptey’
• He worked as a typist and a clerk prior to his training as a lawyer.
• He developed cancer later in life, a fact cruelly mirrored in his son, the late Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey

Obetsebi-Lamptey was by all accounts a firebrand to rival Kwame Nkrumah, a skilled orator, yet with a temperament unlike the calm, reserved personas of the other UGCC members. His denunciations of the colonial government earned him the nickname ‘Liberty Lamptey’.
Whilst a founding member of the UGCC, Obetsebi-Lamptey’s agitations for end to colonial rule began long before joining the party, stemming from his days as a student at London University.
Obetsebi-Lamptey, like his colleagues, was imprisoned following the 1948 riots. He thereafter served on the Coussey Commission, which served as the blueprint for the crucial 1951 elections that was the watershed moment for Independence.