Ace broadcaster, Paul Adom-Otchere says the 1966 coup d’état which overthrew Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and his CPP’s government was justified.
According to Mr. Adom-Otchere, the then newly independent Ghana was thrown into a state of anarchy and insecurity as result of the desire of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah to clinch onto power for the rest of his life and thus, the need to force him out of power and restore law and order as well as restructure the governance of the country.
He argued that not only had the government taken away the right of citizens to change leadership of the legislative and executive arms of government but it passed laws that made the country insecure for ordinary citizens and even members of the legislative arm of government who were critical of the president and his government.
Mr. Adom-Otchere pointed to the infamous Preventive Detention Act passed in 1958 which empowered Dr. Nkrumah to arrest and detain Ghanaians up to 5 years without trial as one of such legislations that made the country insecure for its citizens stating that Members of Parliament had had to abandon their parliamentary duties and seek asylum in other countries as the president attempted to have them arrested and jailed for being critical of him.
For him, the human rights abuses by the then government coupled with the apparent attempt by Dr. Nkrumah to turn Ghana into a one-party state with him as president “for life” were enough grounds for a coup d’état.
“I take the view that the 1966 coup was a good one because the other ways of changing the constitution had been completely emasculated from the law itself and so the regular structures by which you could change the political party that you didn’t like was gone. Ghanaians didn’t have that anymore. The parliament that was voted into power in 1956 was the same parliament that was there in 1966. For 10 years the parliament had been there without any change. Some of the members of Parliament had run away for their lives, some had been jailed under the Preventive Detention Act.
The situation was in terrible state. It was necessary that a coupe occur to overthrow the system and rearrange it. That is my view. It doesn’t have to be your view. You are entitled to disagreeing but this is the basis on which I support the 1966 event because all other angles to remove the government had been taken away and even MPs were running away for safety. There was a real turmoil that needed to be corrected by something like that. Something like an uprising that occurred in 24th February, 1966,” he stated on his show, Good Evening Ghana on Metro TV.
The 24th February 1966 coup d’état led by Major General Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka ousted the Nkrumah’s regime and ushered in the National Liberation Council (NLC) military government which eventually handed over power to a constitutionally elected government in 1969. The coup d’état was as result of general dissatisfaction with the performance of the Nkrumah’s government and the desire of Dr. Nkrumah to rule the country “for life”.
