Accra: Chief of Larteh Ahenease and Benkumhene of the Akuapem Traditional Area, Osabarima Enyin? Asiedu Okoo Ababio III, has recounted how University of Ghana students who demonstrated at Flagstaff House following the overthrow of Ghana's first President, Kwame Nkrumah, were allegedly subjected to beatings by soldiers and police officers. Osabarima Enyin? Asiedu Okoo Ababio III, who was a student of the University of Ghana at the time, said the incident occurred in February 1966, a day after the military coup that removed Kwame Nkrumah from office.
According to Ghana Web, the traditional ruler recalled that he and other students boarded buses from the University of Ghana, Legon, to Flagstaff House in Accra to demonstrate against the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah. He stated that the students were initially allowed by the soldiers and police officers stationed at Flagstaff House to enter the premises and carry out their demonstration.
However, the situation changed when the students were ready to return to Legon, as they discovered that the tyres of the buses they had travelled in had been deflated. The security personnel subsequently subjected students to beatings, leaving them with no means of returning to the university campus.
Osabarima Enyin? Asiedu Okoo Ababio III recounted that he was forced to walk from Accra back to the University of Ghana, Legon campus because the buses had been rendered unusable after their tyres were deflated. He described the experience as traumatic, influencing his decision never to participate in another demonstration, despite subsequent demonstrations by University of Ghana students.
The account comes against the backdrop of the events of February 24, 1966, when the military, in collaboration with the police, overthrew Kwame Nkrumah in a coup codenamed Operation Cold Chop. Dr Nkrumah was outside Ghana on a diplomatic visit to China at the time, and his government was subsequently replaced by the National Liberation Council (NLC), an eight-member military and police administration. The NLC dissolved Parliament, banned Dr Nkrumah's Convention People's Party (CPP), and suspended Ghana's 1960 Constitution.