Retired Major Patrick Adjei-Ampofo, who later served as Military Assistant to former Head of State General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, has recalled the emotional moment he discovered that a military exercise he had been assigned to was connected to the overthrow of Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
Speaking in an interview with Kafui Dey aired on August 31, 2026, Major Adjei-Ampofo said he was deeply saddened when he realised that he and other soldiers were being deployed as part of the operation to remove Nkrumah from office.
He recalled that at the time, he was in the bush leading a platoon on a patrol to locate an enemy position when he was informed that the exercise had been called off because they were needed for a larger brigade exercise.
“Mind you, I hadn’t been in the barracks, I didn’t go with my wife, I was a single person then. And I just dumped my luggage, bags and everything and joined them. So straight from the bush to Accra, only to learn that we were going to overthrow Kwame Nkrumah,” he said.
Asked how he felt when he learnt what the operation was actually about, the retired officer described the experience as terrible.
“It was terrible. My family were staunch CPP. And in the constituency where we were, Fanti Newtown, we were the centre of the activity,” he recalled.
He said his family’s strong support for the Convention People’s Party (CPP), particularly his aunties, made the situation even more difficult.
According to Major Adjei-Ampofo, he was eventually informed at Dodowa Junction, on the outskirts of Accra, about the real objective of the military operation.
“My aunties were strong CPP. But when I was told that, we were told at Dodowa Junction, just outside Accra, that this is what we were going to do, I was broken-hearted. Going to overthrow my party. So, well, soldier, you can’t disobey,” he stated.
He explained that growing up in a household that strongly supported Nkrumah and the CPP made the news particularly painful for him.
Despite his personal reservations, he said his position as a soldier left little room for refusal once the orders were issued.
The events he recalled formed part of the military operation that eventually removed Nkrumah from power in 1966.
Dr Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown in a military coup on February 24, 1966, while he was outside Ghana on a peace mission to Hanoi, North Vietnam.
The coup involved elements of the Ghana Armed Forces and the Ghana Police Service and resulted in the establishment of the National Liberation Council (NLC), which took control of the country.
Major Adjei-Ampofo’s account offers a personal perspective on the coup, highlighting the conflict he says he experienced between his loyalty to his family’s political convictions and his duty as a soldier.
