Lebrecht Wilhelm Fifi Hesse

A member of the notable Hesse family, L. W. Fifi Hesse was born on Friday 16 November 1934. He had his early education at Osu Presbyterian Boarding School, Salem and his secondary education at the Accra Academy. In 1952 while at the Accra Academy he won a national essay competition that was organised by the then Gold Coast authorities to mark the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Two years later he won a competition that was organised by the New York Herald Tribune to select students for the newspaper's annual World Youth Forum which was held in New York City. Through this experience he was able to obtain visits to Israel, Egypt and India. He was abroad when he was informed he had gained admission into Achimota School for his sixth form education. In 1957, he gained admission to the University of Ghana on a Shell Ghana Independence Scholarship, awarded to only four students nationally to mark Ghana's independence.[6] He completed in 1960 with his bachelors in History. That same year he applied for a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University and won becoming the first black African and the first Ghanaian for that matter to achieve this feat.[7][8] He read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oriel College, Oxford from 1960 to 1962.[9][2]

On his return to Ghana he was asked by Kwame Nkrumah to join Dr. W. E. B. Dubois to work on the Encyclopedia Africana was being funded by Kwame Nkrumah. He worked as a research officer[10] and later became an editorial secretary.[11][12] In 1972 he was appointed director general of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.[13] He served in that capacity until 1975 when he was appointed principal assistant secretary for the Ministry of Education and Culture.[14][15] He also served as the principal secretary of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC)[16] and in 1984 he was posted back to the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation again as director general until 1988.[9][17] In 1988, he was appointed member of the Public Services Commission,[18] he served in that capacity until his death in 2000.[2]

He married Charity Caeser, a fashion designer, in 1963 and together they had two daughters and a son.[2] L. W. Fifi Hesse's brother, Christian Hesse, served as Ghana's ambassador to the Soviet Union and subsequently to Russia in the 1980s and 1990s while his sister, Virginia Hesse was appointed the Ghanaian envoy to the Czech Republic in 2017.[19][20]

He died of cancer on 18 October 2000.[2] Hesse's funeral service was held at the Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Osu, where he was the Senior Presbyter, after which his remains were buried at the Basel Mission Cemetery in Osu, Accra.[4][5]