Lawyer Nana Akenten Appiah Menka was a founder member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and former Minister of State in the Second Republic.
Mr Appiah Menka was an industrialist whose company, Appiah Menka Complex Limited, produced the famous but now defunct Apino soap.
His Apino Soap became a subject of adverse political campaigning by former President Jerry John Rawlings.
A product of Abuakwa State College in the Eastern Region, his quest for success compelled him to stow away to the United Kingdom (UK) where he worked for sometime in an infirmary’s mortuary before he chanced upon the late Krobo Edusei, who wondered why a second-year law student would be working in a mortuary.
The Convention People’s Party (CPP) man organised a Cocoa Marketing Board scholarship for him, which saw him leaving the mortuary assignment.
On why he left the CPP, even after playing important roles in the party earlier, he said he could not stand what for him were human rights abuses during the tenure of the country’s first president.
“How could JB Danquah die in prison after only a year when Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in a white man’s prison,” he said.
He was a lawyer by profession and a member of the Constitution Review Commission, which was established by the late Professor Mills’ administration.
Mr Appiah Menka was also the Chairman of the Ashanti Oil Mills, Appiah Menka Complex Limited and Appiah Menka Plantations.
He was also the Chairman of the Council of Elders of the NPP in the Ashanti Region.
Appiah-Menkah authored a book, which is both a biography and a compendium of local politics- The River In The Sea.
He died on Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at the age of 84 in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.
In July 2020 Parliament charged government to name a yet to be established University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development in Kumasi after the late industrialist, politician and Lawyer Akenten Appiah-Menka due to his outstanding contributions to the nation’s economy.
The purpose of the University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development Bill, 2020 is to establish an outstanding internationally acclaimed educational institution dedicated to training of teachers to equip them with the relevant competences for teaching in technical and vocational education and training institutions.
The bill which comprises of 45 clauses, seeks to priorities training of teachers to provide them with the relevant knowledge and aptitudes to create the necessary condition for effective and efficient training of students.
Speaking during the second reading of the bill Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Prof. Kwesi Yankah said the university when established will award doctorate degrees in technical and vocational education training which according to him has the potential of transforming TVET education in the country.
Contributing to the debate on the floor Wa West MP, Joseph Yieleh Chireh made a case for the University to be named after the late Appiah-Menka.
He was an industrialist who helped millions stay clean with Apino soap when the NDC government could not even import soap.
He once said:
“a man should not be dependent on politics for his livelihood.”
And his business acumen was celebrated by Africa with an award.
But even in business, he was always a politician and a nationalist.
It was as President of the Association of Ghana Industries that he led the organization to honour his life-long friend and business tycoon Kwame Pianim, while he was in prison for subversion under the brutal PNDC junta.
The night Kwame Pianim’s wife accepted an award on behalf of her imprisoned husband, there was not a dry eye in that room.
And he was a man of action, who, unusual for a Ghanaian, was also a man of thought. Apino loved ideas.
He was one of the few people who could discuss the political tensions between Disreali and Gladstone and move seamlessly to ethnic and chieftaincy challenges of Yendi or Wenchi or Tetekaasum.
As he showed in “The River in the Sea”, he is a great raconteur.
He recounts that 1979 schism in the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition that led to defeat with great insight.
That experience marked his life and made him a focus of unity.
