Oklemekuku, Nene Azzu Mate Kole II, KMC, OBE, OV, known in private life as Frederick Lawer Mate Kole (January 1910 – 15 March 1990) was a Ghanaian paramount chief and statesman who served as the fourth monarch or king, Konor of the Manya Krobo Traditional Area in southeastern Ghana and reigned from 1939 to 1990.
[1][2][3][4] As a member of the Government's Central Advisory Committee on Education, he operationalized its recommendations which led to the establishment of fifteen Akro State Schools in several villages in Kroboland.
[1][2][3][4] As an advocate of formal education and communal self-help, he organised the administrative state machinery and established the stool treasury which became the revenue collection system for Manya Krobo.
He spearheaded the construction of bridges and feeder roads to link surrounding farming, production and principal market centres such as Abuachau, Akateng, Akotue, Asesewa, Ehiamekyene, Osonson, Sekesua, Sisiamang, Sutapong.
[1][2][3][4] In conjunction with the Office of the District Commissioner at Akuse, James Moxon, Mate Kole organised an Agricultural Show at Laasi, Odumase-Krobo in 1947.
The expo was the biggest provincial show in that period and was attended by the Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Alan Burns together with merchants, manufacturers, indigenous and foreign farmers.
[1][2][3][4] In 1976, Nene Azzu Mate Kole II visited Gerlingen in Germany, the hometown of Johannes Zimmermann (1825 –1876), a philologist, linguist and Basel Missionary who translated the Bible into the Ga language and published a grammar book.
[8] He was appointed a member of the government's Central Advisory Committee on Education (1946–1951) and released stool lands for the establishment of the Mount Mary Training College and the University of Ghana's Agricultural Research Station at Kpong.
[1][2][3][4] Nene Azzu Mate Kole II died on 15 March 1990 of natural causes, not long after the golden jubilee celebrations of his enthronement as chieftain of Manya Krobo (1939–1989).
[1][2][3][4] The lecture, chaired by the reigning monarch, Nene Sakite II, Konor of Manya Krobo was on the topic, "Oklemekuku Azzu Mate Kole: A great king and a statesman”.