[1] Keïta was born in 1924 in Molota in the Kindia Region, completed some secondary schooling in Dakar and in 1947 was appointed a court clerk in Macenta.
He was selected by the future President Ahmed Sékou Touré as a trade union activist, and became a member of the Guinean Democratic Party.
[2] When Guinea gained independence from France, on 10 November 1958 he was appointed secretary of state in the Office of the Presidency.
[3] In April 1960, as Minister of Cooperatives, he unveiled a plan for development of industry and agriculture that significantly increased collective ownership of the means of production, a measure greeted enthusiastically by party militants and unexpectedly endorsed by the president.
[1] After the death of Sékou Touré, the military seized power and arrested Keïta and other members of the former government.