RB Attoh-SAhuma was a royal of Jamestown and Cape Coast.  He became a stepfather to the equally great Kobina Sekyi through marriage to Kobina Sekyi’s mother. He was an ordained minister, newspaper journalist and a well-known nationalist campaigner.  Born on the 22nd of December in 1863, he was the son of James Solomon, a minister of the Wesleyan Methodist.  His birth name was Samuel R.B. Solomon, and he attended the Wesleyan Methodist elementary school, furthered his education in Cape Coast and then after Richmond College was ordained a minister in 1888.  He edited a newspaper the Gold Coast Methodist Times and wrote against the British rule.  In 1987, the newspaper led a strong campaign against a Lands Bill and he was the founder of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society which protested strongly against this bill.  He was removed from the ministry after the article ‘Colony or Protectorate: Which? was published by The Methodist times.  The Wesleyan Mission authorities were not enthused about his political activism.  The newspaper did not do well when he left.

Early 1898 saw him join the Gold Coast Aborigines and he became also a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) which saw him and James E.K. Aggrey selected to study in the United States of America.  He decided to change his name to Attoh Ahuma.  He was at Livingstone College, Salisbury, North Carolina for four years and graduated with a B.A. Hons in 1902 eventually also completing an M.A. thesis at Livingstone College.

When he came back to the Gold Coast, he was appointed the head of the Accra Grammar School which closed Snot long after his appointment.  He then became principal of the AMEZ Secondary School, in Cape Coast.  As a prolific writer, he published several books including Memoir of West African Celebrities (1903), Cruel as a Grave (1913), His Quest and Conquest (1917) and the most famous book being The Gold Coast Nation and National Consciousness. (1911).  Although he was politically active founding The Gold Coast Nation nationalist newspaper, he desired to work as a minister and worked for the missionary church in Axim, Elmina amongst other areas.  He died on the fifteenth of December 1921 in Elmina.

Professor Lloyd Amoah of the University of Ghana writes about SRB Attoh Ahuma and lists some pertinent questions that this great citizen wrote in the last quarter of the 19th century.  In this period, nationalism in the Gold Coast had peaked.

SRB Attoh Ahuma asks:

  • But if we are a Nation, are we self-conscious?

Do we manfully strive by legitimate means and methods to realise our responsibilities and obligations?

Have we felt that we are endowed with potentialities and aspirations which suggest larger and fully things than all we have yet seen and done?

What reforming agencies are at work in our midst and what is our individual relation to them?

Do we care to exhibit that broad sympathetic interest in the things which made for national progress and advancement?