Kwame Nkrumah
The UGCC's general secretary who broke away, founded the CPP and led Ghana to independence in 1957.
Ghana-Net.com · Names of Past and Present · The Big Six
Arrested with Nkrumah in 1948. Removed from the bench by Nkrumah in 1964. Chief Justice after Nkrumah fell, President of the Second Republic, and overthrown himself in 1972. Edward Akufo-Addo is the member of the Big Six most people have forgotten — and his life runs through almost every turning point of Ghana's first quarter-century.
Edward Akwasi Akufo-Addo was born on 26 June 1906 at Dodowa, into a family of the Akuapem royal house of Akropong. He was educated at Achimota and then at Oxford, and was called to the bar in London in 1940. Back in the Gold Coast he built a practice as one of the colony's leading lawyers.
He was, in other words, exactly the kind of man the early nationalist movement was made of: educated, propertied, cautious, and convinced that independence would be won through the law and the constitution rather than in the streets.
Why he is forgotten. Nkrumah's story became the national story, and the men who split from him were written to the margins. Of the Big Six, Akufo-Addo reached higher office than any except Nkrumah himself — and is remembered least.
In August 1947 a group of lawyers and businessmen founded the United Gold Coast Convention to press for self-government. Akufo-Addo was among its founders.
The UGCC hired a young organiser back from London, Kwame Nkrumah, as its general secretary. In February 1948 the shooting of ex-servicemen at the Christiansborg crossroads in Accra set off riots across the colony. The British blamed the UGCC leadership and arrested six of them: J. B. Danquah, Kwame Nkrumah, Edward Akufo-Addo, Ebenezer Ako-Adjei, William Ofori Atta and Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey. From that detention came the name that has stuck to them ever since — the Big Six.
The riots led to the Watson Commission and then to the Coussey Committee of 1949, which drafted a new constitution for the colony. Akufo-Addo sat on it. By then the movement had split: Nkrumah left the UGCC to found the Convention People's Party, took the crowds with him, and won. Akufo-Addo stayed with Danquah and the lawyers — on the losing side.
After independence, Akufo-Addo was appointed to the bench, and in 1962 he sat on Ghana's Supreme Court. In 1963 he was one of the judges in the special court that tried the men accused of the 1962 bomb attack on Nkrumah at Kulungugu. Among the accused was his old Big Six colleague, Ebenezer Ako-Adjei.
The court acquitted Ako-Adjei and his co-accused. Nkrumah's response set the tone for what followed: the Chief Justice, Sir Arku Korsah, was dismissed, the verdict was set aside, and the men were tried again and convicted. Akufo-Addo himself was removed from the bench, by most accounts in 1964.
Why this matters. The 1963 verdict is one of the moments when Ghana's judiciary said no to its government — and paid for it. Ghana's later judges have had their own ordeal: see the three murdered judges of 1982.
On 24 February 1966 the army and police overthrew Nkrumah while he was abroad. The military government, the National Liberation Council, brought back the men Nkrumah had pushed aside. Akufo-Addo was appointed Chief Justice.
He also chaired the commission that drafted a new constitution for a return to civilian rule. The result was the 1969 constitution of Ghana's Second Republic: a parliamentary system with a prime minister leading the government and a president as head of state.
The 1969 election brought Kofi Abrefa Busia and his Progress Party to power, with Busia as prime minister. On 31 August 1970 Edward Akufo-Addo became President of Ghana. The post was largely ceremonial; real power lay with Busia's government.
It did not last. The economy was in trouble, the cedi was devalued sharply in December 1971, and on 13 January 1972 Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong seized power. The Second Republic was over after little more than two years, and Akufo-Addo was out of office.
He died in Accra on 17 July 1979 — in the same troubled summer that saw Jerry Rawlings' first seizure of power.
Every head of state since independence, in order, on our sister site: Leaders of Ghana. Busia's story: Kofi Abrefa Busia.
For most Ghanaians under fifty, "Akufo-Addo" means his son. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was President of Ghana from 2017 to 2025 — making Edward and Nana the first father and son both to hold the presidency. The family's roots are in Akropong-Akuapem, and its politics, like Edward's, trace back to the Danquah–Busia tradition rather than Nkrumah's.
That lineage explains why Edward Akufo-Addo is remembered so differently depending on who is telling the story. For one tradition he is a founding father sidelined by a would-be dictator; for the other, a conservative lawyer who backed the coup that ended Nkrumah's rule. Both are partly true.
His son's page: Nana Akufo-Addo. More names: Names of Past and Present.
The six men arrested in 1948. Five are profiled on our sister site myghana2027.com, which also carries the full story of the group.
The UGCC's general secretary who broke away, founded the CPP and led Ghana to independence in 1957.
The UGCC's leading figure, who proposed the name "Ghana" — and died in detention under Nkrumah.
The man who brought Nkrumah into the UGCC — later Foreign Minister, then acquitted and jailed anyway after 1963.
"Paa Willie", of the Akyem Abuakwa royal house — a UGCC founder who later served in Busia's government.
The Ga lawyer and orator of the group, who died in detention in 1963.
The full story of the six men arrested in 1948, and what became of each of them.
Where it happened in Accra: Old Parliament House, Black Star Square and Jubilee House. The city: Accra. The men who were shot in 1948: Sergeant Adjetey, Corporal Attipoe and Private Odartey Lamptey.
Edward Akufo-Addo was not a crowd-puller and never tried to be. He was a lawyer who believed in constitutions, and his career shows what happened to that belief in Ghana's first decades: it got him arrested by the British, removed by Nkrumah, promoted by the soldiers who overthrew Nkrumah, and removed again by the next soldiers. Few lives tell the story of Ghana's first Republics as completely.
Verified: 26 September 2026. Dates of birth (26 June 1906, Dodowa) and death (17 July 1979, Accra), the 1948 arrest of the Big Six, his membership of the Coussey Committee, his service as Chief Justice after 1966, the 1969 constitution, his presidency from 31 August 1970 and the coup of 13 January 1972 follow standard biographical accounts. The year of his removal from the bench is given as 1964 following most accounts. Corrections welcome and will be published in full.