[1] Sekyi, born on 1 November 1892 in Cape Coast, was the son of John Gladstone Sackey, headmaster of the Wesleyan School, who was himself the son of Chief Kofi Sekyi, the Chief Regent of Cape Coast[2] and Wilhelmina Pietersen, also known as Amba Paaba, daughter of Willem Essuman Pietersen (c.1844–1914); Pietersen was an Elmina-Cape Coast businessman and one-time President of the Aborigines' Rights Protection Society, a later president of which was Sekyi's uncle, Henry van Hien, whose heir Sekyi was.

[3] Sekyi was educated at Mfantsipim School and studied philosophy at the University College of London, accompanied to Britain by his maternal grandfather.

B. Essuman-Gwira, but because his family controlled the purse strings and they wished him to study law, that was the career he entered.

[3] Sekyi was popular as the first educated elite appearing in a colonial court in Ghanaian "ntoma" cloth as a lawyer.

[5][6] His novel The Anglo-Fante, serialized in West Africa magazine in 1918,[7] was the first English-language novel written in Cape Coast.