Departure of an unsung scientific collossus

“Apart from understanding the universe, and perceiving new potentialities, science is an essential means of meeting society’s needs for food, water, transport and communication, energy, good environment, health care, shelter, safety and alleviation of poverty”- Professor Francis Allotey, from the book, “One Hundred Reasons To Be A Scientist (2004).”

Last Friday, Professor Francis Kofi Ampenyin Allotey, who was arguably Ghana’s most renowned Mathematical Physicist and an accomplished scientist, began his final voyage home at a state service at the forecourt of the State House, in Accra. Great scientists, high profile government officials, policymakers in the field of science and technology, eminent scholars, academicians and admirers from across the globe gathered there to pay their last respects to the great scientist who preferred to be called simply as “FKA.”

The truth is that before the emergence of the glitterati of Africa and Ghana’s great scientific minds such as NASA’s robotics engineer Ashitey Trebi-Ollenu and rocket scientist Ave Kludze, spine reconstruction scientist, Oheneba Boachie-Adjei, Victor Lawrence of Stevens Institute of Technology, Malian-born aerospace engineer, Cheick Modibo Diarra; the Nigerian-born computer scientist, geologist, and engineer, Philip Emeagwali and several others; there was Francis Kofi Ampenyi Allotey with his “Allotey Formalism.”

FKA was the first great science genius from Ghana and Africa after the famous Denu-born scientist, Dr Raphael Ernest Grail Armattoe (who nearly won the Noble Peace Prize for Medicine and Physiology in 1949), to prove beyond reasonable doubt that an African child when given equal opportunity in field of maths and science can reach the highest pinnacle of scientific accomplishments in area of scholarship, innovation, invention and nation-building. Like Dr Amarttoe before him, Prof. Allotey studied and researched with the highest scientific and mathematical brains of his time across the globe and succeeded to emerge as primus inter pares. As he once told me, “don’t let anyone tell you the black man is incapable of thinking better than the white man. In fact, we can do far better when right conditions and instruments for study are provided. Look around, there are more intelligent people looking for helping hands and they are not getting that help.”

Childhood and education

Francis Allotey made his glorious debut into this theatre of life in the Ekwadaa (Lower town) section of the ancient Mfantse Nkusukum and politically historic town of Saltpond in the Central Region of Ghana on August 9, 1932. His father was Joseph Allotey, a Ga trader from Accra, and his mother was Alice, a dressmaker from Saltpond. Thus Prof. Allotey, just like his fellow Nkusukum Akyemfo Prabiw intellectual giant, Prof. Paul Ansah (PAVA), is fond of saying, “mefi Akyemfo yennsuro polis” (I am from Saltpond, we do not fear police).

It is said that at the age of two he pressured his father to enrol him at the Saltpond Roman Catholic School nursery. One day, he got lost from school and after being found by a search party he had to be withdrawn from school and given private tuition in the house. Upon his return to school in his formative years and having passed his Middle School exams at the age of 15 with distinction, FKAs love and admiration for the Gold Coast nationalist leader and Ghana`s first president, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah made him to choose the Ghana National College (Ghanacoll) ahead of Mfantsipim, Adisadel and Saint Augustine’s College in Cape Coast, to pursue his secondary school education. He was fortunate to be taught by nationalist founding teachers - Kwesi Plange, J. J. Mensah-Kane, Nelson and H.W.A.K. Sackeyfio - as the first and only student enrolled at Form One. Here, he was academic superstar among his mates (who joined later) and teachers.

He completed Ghanacoll in 1952 and started teaching at privately owned secondary school at Saltpond. He later founded his own co-educational boarding secondary school, Fanti Confederation Secondary Technical College, where he acted as the headmaster and taught Mathematics, French and Science. The school served as an avenue for the people in the Mfantsiman area to realise their educational potentials.

In 1953, FKA left his school in the care of his brother, Augustine Allotey, and made his academic odyssey to England. He commenced his studies at the University Tutorial College and continued at the Borough Polytechnic, both in London. In his final year as Mathematical Science student at the Borough Polytechnic, FKA was given an on-the-spot master’s degree admission programme at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, following his uncanny ability to solve two complex mathematical problems impromptu when he walked in to face Dr Raimes, a Reader of the university. Thus FKA made history as the first person to read masters programme at the Imperial College in London without undergraduate degree.

After completion of his eventful academic studies at the Imperial College, Allotey returned to Ghana on December 2, 1960 to start his lectureship at the Department of Mathematics at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). After two years as the rising star of his department, FKA procured a study leave to pursue his master’s and the Doctor of Philosophy Degree (PhD) in Mathematics at Princeton University in the United States of America as the first African to study Mathematics at their Department.

It was while FKA was studying at Princeton that he conceived the scientific idea - Soft X-Ray Spectroscopy which established the principle widely known as the "Allotey Formalism" - which later established his solid global intellectual magnum opus in science and technology in 1973. The Allotey Formalism in ordinary man's language is the technique used to determine matter in outer space, e.g., the speed of a rocket. For this spectacular scientific invention, FKA beat the scientists across the world to win the prestigious Prince Philip Gold Medal Award in 1973. FKA puts it succinctly in the 2004 Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) book, One Hundred Reasons To Be A Scientist: I was the first to introduce electron-hole scattering resonances effect on soft X-ray spectroscopy.

Outside academia, FKA is respected and acknowledged by the various Fante groups. The people of Nkusukum and Anomabo had given him community awards at their Odambea and Okyir festivals for his meritorious service to the socio-economic and educational developments in the Mfantseman District. As a true son of the land, he ensured that the headquarters of the African Institute of Maths and Science (AIMS) was situated at Anomabo to offer educational and employment opportunity to the people.

Social creature

Prof. Allotey steadily climbed the ladder of fame from his scientific career as researcher, scholar and a teacher, to the very top. He never let his intellectual superman stature at the height of his powers enter his head. Within the long period of success and fame beyond anything already attained, perhaps unequalled in the history of Ghanaian atomic science and physics history, FKA was still a simple man; easily approachable and ready to assist. He never forgot a face nor forgot what he had promised to do for you.

We speak of him as an ideal Master of Freemasonry who exhibited nobility of his character, the strength and splendour of his manhood, his high principles and sense of honour, the strength and loyalty and faithfulness of his friendship, his unbounded sympathy and consideration for others. Prof. was noted for his constant devotion to duty, dauntless courage, brilliant intellect, wit and humour, beautiful gentleness and kindness, courtesy and tact, innate modesty (for Prof. never boasted); not to mention his erect and handsome figure, radiant countenance and cheerful disposition, which spread happiness among all around him.

Prof. Damirifa due
Dayie