Ghana's Coups, 1966–1983
Every coup and every execution, in order.
Ghana-Net.com · People of Ghana · Heads of State · 1937–1979
He was the officer who moved Ghana's traffic to the right, the general who removed his own boss, and the head of state who lifted the ban on parties and set a date for elections. He ruled for eleven months. Then a flight lieutenant he had put on trial walked out of his cell, took power, and had him shot, three weeks before the vote Akuffo had organised. Fred Akuffo is the least remembered of Ghana's soldier-rulers, and one of the most tragic.
Frederick William Kwasi Akuffo was born on 21 March 1937 at Akropong, the capital of the Akuapem kingdom on the ridge above Accra and the first great base of the Basel Mission. He was educated in that Presbyterian tradition, at the Presbyterian Secondary School when it still stood at Odumase Krobo, before it moved to Legon.
He joined the army in the year of independence, 1957, and in 1958 went to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. He trained as a paratrooper, served with the United Nations in the Congo, and later attended staff college in Britain and the National Defence College in India. He commanded the Airborne Training School at Tamale in the mid-1960s and the 6th Battalion from 1969 to 1970.
Akuffo played no part in the coup of 1972, but he rose fast in the military government that followed. He commanded the 2nd Brigade, and the regime gave him one of its biggest practical jobs: organising Operation Keep Right, the switch from driving on the left to driving on the right on 4 August 1974. It went through without chaos, which made his name.
In April 1974 he became Army Commander, which brought a seat on the ruling council, and when it became the Supreme Military Council (SMC) in 1975 he was deputy to Ignatius Acheampong. In 1976 he became Chief of Defence Staff. He was the second man in the regime through the worst years of kalabule and the Unigov campaign, and that record would later be held against him.
By mid-1978 the SMC's senior officers could see where Acheampong was taking them: an economy in ruins, universities closed, professionals on strike, and a Unigov referendum few believed. On 5 July 1978 they removed him without a shot, accusing him of running a "one-man show". Akuffo became chairman of what Ghanaians called SMC II, with Lieutenant-General Joshua Hamidu as his deputy.
The limit of the change: the new council was largely the old council without its chairman. Acheampong was retired and sent home, not tried. To many Ghanaians, and above all to the angry junior ranks, it looked like the generals protecting each other.
The immunity question: junior officers believed the generals meant to leave power with their wealth untouched and protected from prosecution. Whether or not that was fair, it was widely believed in the barracks, and it made the next coup far more dangerous.
On 15 May 1979 a young air force officer, Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, led a small group of airmen in an attempt to seize power. It failed, and Rawlings was arrested and put on trial. He turned the courtroom into a stage, taking full responsibility, sparing the men under him, and attacking the corruption of the generals. The trial made him a hero to ordinary soldiers and to much of the public.
In the early hours of 4 June 1979, soldiers broke Rawlings out of his cell. After a day of fighting in Accra, in which the army commander Major-General Neville Odartey-Wellington was killed, the SMC collapsed. Rawlings formed the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and announced that the elections would go ahead, but only after a "house-cleaning".
Akuffo and his colleagues were arrested. On 16 June Acheampong and Major-General Edward Utuka were shot. On 18 June Ghana voted, as Akuffo had planned. On 26 June 1979, after secret hearings with no proper defence, Fred Akuffo was executed by firing squad at the Teshie range together with Akwasi Afrifa, Major-General Robert Kotei, Rear Admiral Joy Amedume, Air Vice-Marshal George Boakye and Colonel Roger Felli. He was 42.
What came next: on 24 September 1979 the AFRC handed power to the elected president, Hilla Limann, who won the election Akuffo organised. Two years later Rawlings took power again. The AFRC's acts of 1979 were later placed beyond the courts by the 1992 Constitution; see the Fourth Republic.
Every coup and every execution, in order.
Yentua, Keep Right, kalabule, Unigov, and the firing squad.
Every head of state and president from independence to today.
His home town: Akropong-Akuapem, on the ridge with Aburi; regional capital Koforidua. Also: People of Ghana and the 1,000-year timeline.
Akuffo was an able officer and, in his short time at the top, did what his predecessor would not: he dropped Unigov, restored party politics and fixed a date to hand power to civilians. But he had also been Acheampong's deputy through the worst years, and his palace coup looked to many like the generals saving themselves. He paid for both. He was shot not after a trial but after a revolution, eight days after the election he had organised. Of all the executions of June 1979, his is perhaps the hardest to explain, because he was the one already handing over power.
Verified: 29 September 2026. Birth and death dates, his schooling at Odumase Krobo, Sandhurst from 1958, command of Operation Keep Right, Army Commander from April 1974, Chief of Defence Staff from 1976, the palace coup of 5 July 1978 and the election date of 18 June 1979 follow standard biographies, including the Sandhurst Trust's. The events of 15 May, 4 June and 26 June 1979 follow standard histories. The immunity question is presented as what junior officers believed, not as proven. Corrections welcome and will be published in full.