Meet Ghana's First Female Bank Manager | Kafui Dey interviews Veronica Abla Adika

The Woman Who Broke the Ground: A Conversation with Madame Veronica Ablah Adika

One day after her 88th birthday, Madame Veronica Ablah Adika sits down with Kafui Dey in the quiet of her home. She walks without support, cooks her own meals, does her own marketing because she will not trust anyone to bring her rotten tomatoes, and still does mental arithmetic faster than people half her age reach for a calculator. She is Ghana's first female bank manager — a distinction she earned at 25 at Ghana Commercial Bank — and her story moves from a childhood in the heart of Accra, through Holy Child and KNUST, to a career spanning some of the most turbulent decades in Ghana's economic history, including a dismissal that was announced on national radio and a vindication she received without shedding a single tear.

Life at 88

She does not feel different. She cannot quite believe she is 88. Her birthday was spent simply — children and grandchildren gathered in the afternoon after church, a few bottles of minerals, conversation, doors closed by nine. No loud noise about it. She does not blow her horn. At this age, she says, you do not want surprises. You never know how they will turn out.

Her strength, she says plainly, comes from God. There is nothing you can do on this earth with your own strength. The independence — walking, cooking, doing her own marketing, taking her own bath — matters to her deeply. It means she still has her life, and she is living it on her own terms.

A Father's Advice

Before she joined Ghana Commercial Bank, her father gave her counsel she carried through thirty-seven years of work without deviation. He told her: do the things that are expected of you, do not add and do not take away. When you leave your seat and walk away, you will not need to look over your shoulder to see whether someone is pursuing you, because you will have nothing to fear. No bend, no curve. The rules are the rules.

That was how she took her job. It was also, she makes clear, not always easy — other people can put blocks in your way. But the work itself, done with sincerity and honesty, was never in doubt.

Joining Ghana Commercial Bank

She graduated from the College of Administration at Achimota — the institution then sited at KNUST — in December 1960 and joined Ghana Commercial Bank on 1st February 1961. She had applied directly, armed with a testimonial from a tutor named Amagashi. The interview panel was five men. There were other women candidates. She told the panel that mathematics was her best subject and she was not the writing type but the figures type. They laughed. She went home confident she had the job. She was right.

Her first posting was to the High Street branch, the biggest in Ghana at the time, housed in the Bank of Ghana building. She arrived each morning at 7:30. She closed — when the books balanced — at 5. When the books did not balance, she did not see home. Her latest exit was 4:00 in the morning on a day the currency was being changed to cedis in the 1960s. She went home, bathed, and was back at the office by 7:30. The irregular eating that came with those hours gave her a stomach ulcer she still manages at 88.

First Female Bank Manager in Ghana

Two years after joining the bank, at 25 years old, she was summoned by the managing director, Mr. Asafu-Adjei — the first Ghanaian MD after the foreign directors left. He told her that if Ghana was an independent nation, the women must not lag behind. They must move in tandem with the men. He wanted to make her branch manager at Maamobi. She said no problem. The transfer letter came the following day.

She walked into the branch and every member of staff stared at her as if something extraordinary had happened. She addressed them directly: we are here to work, let us work. She did not feel she was representing all women. She did not feel burdened with symbolism. She felt happy doing her work. What focused her was the simple conviction that she had been given an opportunity and must not abuse it. She could not let down those who had believed she could do the job.

She earned the nickname Jumura — owner of the work — because she gave everything to it. She accepted the name gladly. If I am able to own GCB, she says, that is a good name.

Running a Branch

She was responsible for supervising staff across departments — loans, current accounts, savings, and the check purchase department, which processed checks from other branches and cleared funds through the books. She held meetings with her staff, asked them what the branch needed and how to keep it performing, listened to what they said, and moved on with what made sense.

She was strict with performance. When staff tried to defer work to the following day, she did not accept it. Yesterday's work stays yesterday. The books must balance. She would query non-performance and make clear it would affect promotions. One case stands out: a woman who was absent nearly the entire year due to a difficult pregnancy came to ask why she had not been promoted. Madame Adika explained it plainly — she had no work to assess. She pointed to another colleague who had worked hard and been recommended, and to a third whose work had not been good enough either. She said it without malice: you cannot have both the baby and the promotion if the work was not done. The woman thanked her and left.

When two staff members connived with customers to steal money from an account, she called the police immediately. Management moved her to the Ministries branch as a consequence, where senior civil servants complained to the MD about being managed by this small girl. The MD's response was simple: she is here to serve you. That had always been the slogan of Ghana Commercial Bank — we serve you better.

On Money, Loans and the Real Work of Banking

People assume bankers have money. They do not. They oversee other people's money. If you make it your own, you are heading for jail. That principle was never once a temptation.

Loan decisions were governed by limits tied to grade. Above a certain figure, matters went to management; above that, to the board. She could recommend or decline. When account activity did not support the volume being requested, she would either speak to the business owner or simply decline to recommend. Bad loans come from projects that were not properly examined, or from individuals living beyond their means. Prevention is everything.

She was sent for overseas training twice — two programmes in New York, with J Henry Schroder Banking Corporation and with Bankers Trust — and spent one year at the GCB's London branch during the period when it was being restructured as a UK bank. She declined a four-year posting to London and an earlier offer to manage a branch in the Western Region, for the same reason: the loneliness of locking the door at night in a foreign city with no one to ask how your day was. That was not a life she wanted.

The Revolution and the Dismissal

In 1979, the first revolution came. A letter of credit had been opened for a Ghana Airways aircraft lease. The documents were presented, the terms of the letter of credit were met, and payment was released — as the rules required. The plane was not delivered as contracted. A commission of inquiry was established. When the government changed hands, those involved in the transaction were arrested. Her name was read out on national radio. She was dismissed.

She had prepared herself mentally for the worst. When it came, she received it with the same composure she brought to everything. A lawyer named Fuo Albert — a kinsman who believed absolutely in her innocence — offered to defend her at the special court without charging her a pesewa. He collected the documents, went to court, and won the case. The dismissal was cancelled. She was reinstated. All forfeited monies were returned. The court recommended that the work she had done deserved promotion rather than dismissal. The following year, she was promoted.

When the lawyer came to her and said come and cry on my shoulders, she only laughed. She does not cry. That is who she is.

Childhood: Accra in the 1940s

She was born on 3rd May 1938 in the heart of Accra, the seventh of twelve children by the same father and mother. They lived first opposite the Anglican Cathedral in the centre of town, then on Zion Street. Her father was an accountant at UAC. Her mother was a trader at Salaga Market, selling palm oil, beans and groundnuts. As a child she helped carry goods, sold alongside her mother, and with her sister went to Jamestown beach during the fishing season to sell puff puff to hungry fishermen who had just come in from sea. She calls it a good experience — you see how people behave when money is involved.

Her earliest vivid memory is Empire Day — the 25th of May, before independence. Not every child in the school was selected for the march past at the polo grounds, and she always looked forward to being chosen, standing in the scorching sun while the governor took the salute. It was, she says, a bit like what the children do for Independence Day now.

Her father instilled in the family the habit of open-handed hospitality. Anyone coming to Accra from their hometown would stay in their house until they found their footing, then move on. He never once made them feel unwanted. The children grew up knowing that this was simply what you did.

Philip Gbeho: Uncle and Composer

She is the niece of Philip Gbeho, the composer of Ghana's national anthem. He was her mother's brother and a frequent visitor to the family home, always warm, always happy, always arriving to the welcome of fried fish kept ready by her mother. She did not hear the anthem being composed — he was in Achimota while they were in Accra. But when it was announced, her pride was certain. And when she became Ghana's first female bank manager, he came to her mother clapping: my daughter has made it.

She frames the two achievements together instinctively: he did something for which people would say he was part of this family. She did something for which people would say the same. That symmetry means everything to her.

School: St Mary's, Holy Child, and KNUST

She began secondary school at St Mary's Secondary in Korle Bu. When she observed that the first and second exam cohorts from the school had almost entirely failed — one passed, four passed from groups of dozens — she made a unilateral decision to stop attending. She told her father. He said: are you a teacher? Since you are not and you have decided to stop, you stay in the house.

She stayed in the house. Then a cousin visiting from Holy Child mentioned she was going back to Cape Coast. Madame Adika asked her to help her get in. She went to Aburi — full. The cousin went to speak to the sister in charge of Holy Child directly. The sister asked what sport she could do. She said high jump. The sister asked what height. She did not answer. She was given a prospectus and an acceptance.

She went to Jamestown beach with nim tree branches and practised jumping. She hit the crossbar every time. She came home and told her father she had been accepted. He bought all the items on the prospectus list without complaint. She repeated a form — she had been out of school for two terms and could not join form four. She said she was prepared to repeat. She had, after all, been prepared to do high jump. This was nothing.

She passed her school certificate at Holy Child with Division Two. She did not do A levels — the course she wanted at what was then the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi did not require them. She joined USC, lived in the female hall of residence, sweated under asbestos roofing, rode the bone-shaker lorry to Mecca — the lecture hall so far from the residences that it was named like a pilgrimage — by putting her flat-shoed foot through the side opening and swinging herself in. The women in heels had a harder time of it.

When the food quality dropped, they went on strike. When it improved, they went back. She was not the action woman but was, as she says, a good supporter. Every revolution needs those.

What She Learned From All of It

She is not someone who expresses her emotions outwardly. Her granddaughter asked, after a 70th birthday party that the family had organised as a surprise, how she could receive something like that without showing anything. She said: what do I show? She believes she was simply born this way. Even when her dismissal was read on radio, she said to herself: so be it.

What she does show is in how she worked: always on time, always prepared, always demanding the same from those around her. When asked what young people are getting wrong today, she does not hesitate: balance. Do not let the work suffer because of the family, and do not let the family suffer because of the work. The scale must be even.

She also believes the current generation has been pampered into giving up too easily — and that the hunger for quick money, without the appetite for honest work, is one of Ghana's deepest problems. She is not saying everyone. But it is becoming an issue. And she prays for it to change, because Ghana has everything it needs to be a country that does not have to borrow. Everything. The only thing missing is a change in attitude.

Her Final Word

Know who your God is. Then: discipline, contentment, honesty, integrity. These are not complicated things. They are not things that require special talent. They are choices — made every day, in the small moments, in the work that nobody sees. Make them consistently and the sky should be your limit.

She has lived 88 years by that compass. She is still walking without support, still doing her own marketing, still faster at addition than most people with a calculator. She believes she is still here because of those choices, and because of the God who sustained her through all of it.