Showing posts with label ASP James Annan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ASP James Annan. Show all posts

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Nkrumah’s Overthrow Regrettable

By ASP James Annan
The first President of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, was unconstitutionally ousted from office through a military and police coup d’état on February 24, 1966. This year marks exactly 50years since the Convention People’s Party (CPP) government was overthrown.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah
According to declassified documents from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1999, the then US government had been trying to influence some people to overthrow President Nkrumah since 1964.

Apparently, Dr. Nkrumah was seen as an ally of the then Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the ‘Cold War’. But the pan-Africanist leader declared his stance and made the famous statement, “We neither face East nor West; we face forward”.

On February 21, 1966, President Nkrumah left Ghana for Hanoi, the Democratic Republic of North Vietnam, at the invitation of President Ho Chi Minh to resolve the Vietnam War. Ghana was left under the control of a three-man Presidential Commission.

Consequently, the CIA backed-coup in Ghana was carried out at the dawn of February 24, 1966, while Nkrumah was still on peace mission in Asia.

Among the key figures who staged the revolution were Col. E.K. Kotoka, Major A.A. Afrifa, and the then Inspector-General of Police, Mr. J.W.K. Harley.

The famous coup-makers cited Nkrumah’s Preventive Detection Act, corruption, dictatorial practices, oppression, and the deteriorating economy of Ghana as the principal reasons for the uprising.