Jake Obetsebi Lamptey Passes Away

Former National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Jake Otanka Obetsebi Lamptey has died at the age of 70.

Reports have been confirmed that the former National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey has passed away in London after a protracted illness.

See below for biography on the revered politician and media professional:

Born in Accra, Ghana, the second son of Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey (a prominent lawyer and politician) and his Dutch wife Margaretha,[1] Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey had his primary education in Accra, before travelling to England to further his education.

In 1966, he began work as a radio and TV scriptwriter, commentator and presenter at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC). In 1969, he joined Lintas West African, an advertising firm, as an account executive and radio and television producer. As Client Service Manager of Lintas in Ghana in 1971, he wrote, co-ordinated and executed Family Planning, Motivation Campaign for the Ghana National Family Planning Programme. Obetsebi-Lamptey was appointed General Manager of Lintas in Ghana in 1974 and thereafter worked on a number of programmes for the company and others in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Kenya.

From 1984 to 1999, he worked with the World Health Organization (WHO). Obetsebi-Lamptey was the Plenary Speaker at the World Summit on AIDS, London, and Second International Symposium on the disease in Yaoundé, Cameroon. He is a past president of the Advertising Association of Ghana.

From 2005 to July 2007, Obetsebi-Lamptey served as Minister of Tourism and Diasporan Relations in the cabinet of President John Kufuor. Previously Obetsebi-Lamptey was Minister of Tourism and Modernization of the Capital (2002–05) and Minister of Information (2001–02). He was the National Campaign Manager of the victorious New Patriotic Party (NPP) during the 2000 Presidential elections, which saw the first constitutional (civilian-to-civilian) transition of power in that country.

He resigned his posts in July 2007 to campaign for the NPP nomination for the 2008 Presidential elections which he lost. He was the National Chairman of the NPP until losing the post to Paul Afoko in 2014 at the NPP National Delegate Congress in Tamale. Since then not much had been heard from Jake until late last year when he debunked rumors of his death via telephone interview from South Africa where he was receiving treatment.

Obetsebi-Lamptey has several publications to his credit, covering topics from family planning to AIDS prevention in Africa.