Ghana's Coups, 1966–1983
Every coup and every execution, in order.
Ghana-Net.com · People of Ghana · Heads of State · 1931–1979
He took power with a few hundred soldiers while the prime minister was in London, and he ruled Ghana for six and a half years without a parliament. He told the country's creditors "we won't pay", sent civil servants into the fields to grow maize, and one August morning in 1974 moved every car in Ghana to the other side of the road. By the end, Ghanaians had a new word for his economy, kalabule, and his own officers removed him. A year later he was shot. Acheampong is the most contested ruler in modern Ghanaian history: some older Ghanaians still defend him, and almost nobody defends how his rule ended.
Ignatius Kutu Acheampong was born on 23 September 1931 in Kumasi, to a Catholic family from Trabuom in Ashanti; his father was a catechist. He went to Catholic schools in Kumasi and a commercial college at Swedru, and worked as a clerk and teacher before joining the army. He was commissioned in 1959, trained in Britain and the United States, and served with the United Nations in the Congo.
He was not one of the famous officers of 1966. By the start of 1972 he was a lieutenant-colonel commanding the First Infantry Brigade in Accra: a mid-ranking officer with troops close to the capital, which in Ghana's politics of the time was all a coup required.
Prime Minister Kofi Busia had been elected only two years earlier. His government had expelled West African migrants under the Aliens Compliance Order, fired hundreds of civil servants, and cut the army's budget and privileges. In December 1971, with cocoa prices down and debts crushing, it devalued the cedi by about 44 per cent. Prices shot up overnight.
On 13 January 1972, while Busia was in London for medical treatment, Acheampong's troops took over Accra with almost no resistance. The ceremonial president, Edward Akufo-Addo, was removed. The 1969 constitution was suspended and parties banned, and Acheampong became chairman of the National Redemption Council (NRC), head of state and, for good measure, minister of defence, finance and sport.
Busia never came back to power. He died in exile in Oxford in 1978. His coup-maker's first detainees included Akwasi Afrifa, the soldier who had handed Busia power in 1969.
Acheampong's first move made him popular. He reversed much of Busia's devaluation and announced that Ghana would not pay some of the foreign debts left from the Nkrumah years, arguing that many of the contracts had been corrupt or unfair. The Twi slogan was Yentua, "we won't pay". For a country tired of austerity, it sounded like dignity.
The price: repudiation felt good and cost dearly. Western lenders and investors backed away, credit dried up, and by the mid-1970s Ghana was running on printed money. Yentua became one of the roots of the inflation and shortages that defined the end of his rule.
In 1972 the NRC launched Operation Feed Yourself, a national campaign to end food imports. Soldiers, students, civil servants and prisoners were sent to farm; backyard gardens appeared in Accra; state farms and irrigation got money; and the government encouraged large rice farms in the north. In the first years maize and rice harvests rose, and the programme is still remembered with real warmth by many older Ghanaians.
It did not last. Fixed prices, smuggling across the borders, fertiliser shortages and bad roads eroded it, and by the late 1970s food was again scarce and expensive. Its heir, if any, is the famine of 1983, which showed how little food security the decade had actually built.
Like Britain, the Gold Coast drove on the left. All of Ghana's neighbours, the former French colonies, drove on the right, and so did most of the world. Under Operation Keep Right, Ghana switched on 4 August 1974. After a long public education campaign, vehicles changed sides and bus doors had to be moved. It was one of the most complicated logistical exercises any Ghanaian government has managed, and it worked.
And the metre: in the same years Ghana also moved from imperial to metric measures. Every Ghanaian who drives on the right and buys fuel by the litre lives with Acheampong's reforms. More on getting around today: public transport in Ghana.
In 1975 the NRC became the Supreme Military Council (SMC), run by senior officers, with Fred Akuffo as Acheampong's deputy. Acheampong promoted himself to general. The economy meanwhile came apart.
From 1976 Acheampong pushed Union Government ("Unigov"): a system with no political parties, in which soldiers, police and civilians would govern together. Critics saw it simply as a way to keep the army, and Acheampong, in power.
Opposition grew fast. Lawyers, doctors, students, churches and the old politicians of both traditions, Afrifa among them, organised against it. University students protested and the universities were closed. At the referendum of 30 March 1978, the government declared a narrow yes. The Electoral Commissioner, Justice Isaac Abban, was pushed aside during the count and went into hiding; few Ghanaians believed the result.
On 5 July 1978 his fellow generals removed him. Fred Akuffo took over the SMC, dropped Unigov and promised elections for 1979. Acheampong was stripped of his rank and confined to his home village. For most Ghanaians that looked like the end of his story.
It was not. On 4 June 1979 junior officers under Jerry Rawlings seized power and formed the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council. Acheampong was arrested, and on 16 June 1979, together with Major-General Edward Utuka, he was shot by firing squad at the Teshie military range near Accra, after a secret hearing with no defence. Ten days later Afrifa, Akuffo and four other senior officers followed. He was 47.
What the executions were: whatever Acheampong's guilt for the kalabule years, he was never tried in open court. The 1992 Constitution later placed what the AFRC did in those weeks beyond the reach of the courts; see the Fourth Republic.
Every coup and every execution, in order.
The deputy who removed him, and was shot ten days after him.
The soldiers of 1966, and the one Acheampong detained.
Every head of state and president from independence to today.
Also: People of Ghana, Hilla Limann, who won the 1979 election that Acheampong's successor organised, and the 1,000-year timeline.
Acheampong's defenders point to real things: the national pride of Yentua, the farming drive of Operation Feed Yourself, and two reforms, driving on the right and the metric system, that were carried out well and still shape daily life. His critics point to things just as real: a coup against an elected government, detention without trial, the economic collapse of kalabule, and a rigged referendum meant to keep soldiers in power for good. Both are true. What is not in doubt is that his rule ended the idea that military government was a short, honest emergency measure, and that his execution without trial was itself a crime. He left Ghana poorer, angrier, and ready for Rawlings.
Verified: 29 September 2026. Birth and death dates, the coup of 13 January 1972, the NRC and SMC (from 9 October 1975), the palace coup of 5 July 1978 and the execution of 16 June 1979 follow standard biographies. The 44 per cent devaluation, Yentua, Operation Feed Yourself, Operation Keep Right (4 August 1974), metrication, the Unigov referendum of 30 March 1978 and the removal of the Electoral Commissioner during the count follow Ghanaian records and historical accounts. Inflation figures are given as rounded orders of magnitude. Corrections welcome and will be published in full.