Prof Benneh to be buried today

Former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Emeritus George Kwabena Effah Benneh is to be interred today, March 27, 2021, at a private ceremony in his hometown, Akrofro, near Berekum in the Bono Region.

Graphic.com.gh reports that a mass Requiem was held on Friday at the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Accra to celebrate the former Vice-Chancellor of Ghana’s premier university.

His remains were then transported to Akrofro for a similar filing past.

Prof Benneh passed on after a prolonged illness he had been battling in his home on February 11, 2021. He died at 87.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the Asante Asokorehene, Nana Dr S K B Asante; the Board Chairman of the Ghana Cocoa Board, Mr Hackman Owusu Agyeman, and the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC), Mrs Jean Mensa, are among many high profile dignitaries who were in attendance at the Requiem to pay their last respects to the departed academic national treasure.

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Prof Benneh was born on March 6, 1934 at Berekum. He was the eldest child among his three siblings.

He attended Achimota School and later proceeded to the University of Ghana in 1954 as one of four students who won the then Shell Ghana Independence Scholarship for tertiary students.

After a successful degree programme, Prof Benneh travelled to London for his postgraduate studies during which he obtained his PhD at the London School of Economics in 1964.

He was the fifth Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana but the eighth person to head the country’s premier university.

His tenure was from 1992 to 1996.

At the beginning of his career, just before his doctoral studies, Prof. Benneh taught Geography at Achimota School in 1961.

He later became a lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Ghana, Legon, in 1964, and went on to become a Senior Lecturer (1973), Associate Professor (1976) and Full Professor in 1989.

He was a distinguished visiting professor and guest speaker at the 50th anniversary of the Fulbright Hayes Fellowship Anniversary Conference in Atlanta in 1996.

Prof. Benneh authored over 13 books and booklets and 70 other publications in Geography, Environment, Land Tenure and Land Use, Population, Education and Public Administration. Some of his books include A New Geography of Ghana (1970) and Technology Should Seek Tradition: Studies on Traditional Land Tenure and Small Holder Farming Systems in Ghana (2011).