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Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?: the Case of Nkrumah's National Security Service

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Simon Baynham
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Extract

From the ancient Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta to twentiethcentury Bolivia and Zaïre, from theories of development and underdevelopment to models of civil-military relations, one is struck by the enormous literature on armed intervention in the domestic political arena. In recent years, a veritable rash of material on the subject of military politics has appeared – as much from newspaper correspondents reporting pre-dawn coups from third-world capitals as from the more rarefied towers of academe. Yet looking at the subject from the perspective of how régimes mobilise resources and mechanisms to protect themselves from their own security forces, one is struck by the paucity of empirically-based evidence on the subject.1

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1985 , pp. 87 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

page 87 note 1 But see Goldsworthy, David, ‘Armies and Politics in Civilian Regimes’, in Baynham, S. J. (ed.), Military Power and Politics in Black Africa (London, forthcoming);Google ScholarPachter, Elise Forbes, ‘ContraCoup: civilian control of the military in Guinea, Tanzania, and Mozambique’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 20, 4, 12 1982, pp. 595–612;Google Scholar and Charlton, R., ‘Predicting African Military Coups’, in Futures (Guildford), 15, 4, 1983, pp. 281–92.Google Scholar

page 87 note 2 As in Benin, December, 1965; Nigeria, July 1966; or Ghana, July 1978 and June 1979.

page 88 note 1 Finer, Samuel E., The Man on Horseback: the role of the military in politics (London, 1962), p. 6.Google Scholar

page 88 note 2 Janowitz, Morris, Sociology and the Military Establishment (New York, 1959), p. 8.Google Scholar

page 88 note 3 Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, 1968), p. 194.Google Scholar

page 88 note 4 According to Nordlinger, Eric A., Soldiers in Politics: military coups and governments (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1977), p. xi: ‘The external or “environmental” variables include the actions of civilian executives, the performance and legitimacy of civilian governments, the politicization of workers and peasants, the severity of communal conflicts, the extent of socioeconomic modernization, and the rate of economic growth’.Google Scholar

page 88 note 5 Finer, op.cit. chs. 7, 8, and 9.

page 89 note 1 For a further account of civilian opposition to military intervention, see Roberts, Adam, ‘Civil Resistance to Military Coups’, in Journal of Peace Research (Oslo), XII, I, 1975, pp. 19–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 89 note 2 A good deal has already been written on the nature of politics and society in the period under review, three of the most important being: Austin, Dennis, Politics in Ghana, 1946–1960 (London, 1964);Google ScholarBretton, Henry L., The Rise and Fall of Kwame Nkrumah: a study of personal rule in Africa (London, 1966);Google Scholar and Jones, Trevor, Ghana's First Republic, 1960–1966: the pursuit of the political kingdom (London, 1976).Google Scholar

page 90 note 1 Huntington, Samuel P., The Soldier and the State (New York, 1957).Google Scholar

page 90 note 2 But as Finer has noted in The Man on Horseback, p. 15, the problem here is that the army might accept the formula, then distinguish between the good of the state and the performance of a particular government. Professionalism may then actually lead to armed intervention. See, too, Janowitz, Morris, The Military in the Political Development of New Nations (Chicago, 1967), pp. 63–7, whose discussion on the subject underlines the narrow and ‘essentialist’ definition of professionalism expounded by Huntington.Google Scholar

page 90 note 3 Huntington, , The Soldier and the State, p. 83.Google Scholar

page 90 note 4 Ibid. p. 84.

page 91 note 1 Ministry of Defence, The Army Seniority Role, July 1967 (Accra, 1967);Google Scholar and H.M.S.O., The Army List (London), 1947–1957.Google Scholar

page 91 note 2 Estimated from an examination of recruitment lists appearing in Ministry of Information, Ghana Gazette (Accra), 1957–1962. Very frequently, the tribes of the men are immediately recognisable since the registered surname often coincides with the ethnic group or area of origin: Bukari Sissala, Allasan Gonja, Braima Dagarti, Tindana Talensa, and so on.Google Scholar

page 91 note 3 This is not to say that Gold Coast soldiers or ex-soldiers never played a political rôle prior to 1957. In fact, some did although it was of a ‘relatively limited nature’ according to Killingray, David, ‘Soldiers, Ex-Servicemen, and Politics in the Gold Coast, 1939–1950’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 21 3, 09 1983, p. 534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 92 note 1 For details, see Baynham, S. J., ‘The Ghanaian Military: a bibliographic essay’, in West African Journal of Sociology and Political Science (Exeter), I, 1, 1975, pp. 83–96;Google Scholar and Ghana Armed Forces Magazine (Accra), I, 1, 1967, pp. 30–3.Google Scholar

page 93 note 1 By the end of 1958, the number of African officers had more than doubled, from the March 1957 figure of 29, to 59. By the end of 1959, there were 83 Ghanaian officers in the army, a figure that had risen to 119 by December 1960. Computed from The Army Seniority Role, July 1967 and Ghana Gazette, 1959–1962.Google Scholar

page 93 note 2 Nkrumah, Kwame, Dark Days in Ghana (London, 1958), p. 62.Google Scholar

page 94 note 1 These events lie outside the scope of this article, but details of the Ghanaian rôle may be found in Major-General Alexander, H. T., African Tightrope: my two years as Nkrumah's Chief of Staff (London, 1965);Google ScholarLefever, Ernest W., Uncertain Mandate: Politics of the U.N. Congo operation (Baltimore, 1967);Google Scholar and Thompson, W. Scott, Ghana's Foreign Policy, 1957–1966: diplomacy, ideology, and the new state (Princeton, 1969).Google Scholar

page 94 note 2 Major-General Ocran, A. K., A Myth is Broken: an account of the Ghana coup d'etat of 24th February 1966 (London, 1968), pp. 6–7. Ocran's First Infantry Brigade played a rôle in toppling the C.P.P. régime.Google Scholar

page 95 note 1 See Austin, op.cit. ch. VIII.

page 95 note 2 Ghana Government Printer, Proceedings and Report of the Committee Appointed to Enquire into the Matters Disclosed at the Trial of Captain Benjamin Awhaitey before a Court Martial and the Surrounding Circumstances (Accra, 1959), Appendix B., p. ii.Google Scholar

page 95 note 3 Nkrumah, , op.cit. p. 37.Google Scholar

page 95 note 4 The growing proclivity towards armed intervention elsewhere in Africa (U.A.R., 1952; Congo-Kinshasa, 1960 and 1965; Dahomey, 1963; Nigeria, 1966; in addition to a wave of abortive military uprisings and mutinies since independence in Algeria, Burudi, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Tanganyika, Togo, and Uganda) caused considerable consternation within the leadership of the C.P.P. Addressing the National Assembly soon after the January 1966 coup in Nigeria, and only a fortnight before his own overthrow, Nkrumah referred to the ‘unfortunate military incursions into the political life of several independent African states’, and warned that ‘it is not the duty of the army to rule or govern because it has no political mandate’. Parliamentary Debates (Accra), 72, 1 02 1966, cols. 929–32.Google Scholar

page 96 note 1 The first was a grenade attack on Nkrumah at the northern village of Kulungugu on 1 August 1962 where several people were killed; Nkrumah received shrapnel wounds in his back. In the second episode, the President was attacked in the grounds of Flagstaff House, Accra, by an armed constable, Seth Ametewee, who fired several close-range rifle rounds at Nkrumah before being overpowered by his police colleagues. Nkrumah's only injury was a bite on the cheek received whilst wrestling his would-be killer to the ground.

page 96 note 2 In his study of the civil service during the C.P.P. era, Benjamin Amonoo convincingly argues that a similar process occurred with regard to the civilian bureaucracy at national and lower levels. ‘Polities of Institutional Dualism: Ghana, 1957–1966’, Ph.D. dissertation, Exeter University, 1973.

page 97 note 1 Interview, Lt.-Colonel Enninful, C. K., Military Secretary, 11 August 1975.Google Scholar

page 97 note 2 Interview, Lt.-Colonel Akuoku, I. K., Director of Military Intelligence, 21 August 1975.Google Scholar

page 98 note 1 Ministry of Information, Nkrumah's Subversion in Africa (Accra, 1966), pp. i and iv. While the language of this propaganda publication put out by the army-police National Liberation Council junta soon after the coup is somewhat virulent, the data, according to numerous military and political personnel interviewed by this writer, is clearly factual.Google Scholar

page 99 note 1 Interview, Major, B. B. Lorwia, Deputy C.O., Ministry of Defence Records Office, 13 August 1975.Google Scholar

page 99 note 2 Interview, Brigadier, D. A. Asare, retired army officer, 22 April 1974.Google Scholar

page 99 note 3 Afrifa, Colonel A. A., The Ghana Coup: 24th February 1966 (London, 1967), pp. 100–4.Google Scholar

page 99 note 4 Interview, Brigadier Asare, op.cit.

page 100 note 1 For details, see Austin, op.cit., Bretton, op.cit., and Jones, op.cit.

page 100 note 2 In fact, muted opposition from the officers, encouraged, it should be added, by the inevitable sluggishness of the bureaucratic process in Launching the scheme, ensured that the directive had not been enforced by the time of the 1966 coup.

page 100 note 3 A view expressed most succinctly by Nyerere, : ‘Our conception of the President's Office is obviously incompatible with the theory that the public services are and ought to be politically impartial.’ The Observer (London), 3 06 1962. Elsewhere in Africa today (in Machel's Mozambique, in Mengistu's Ethiopia, and in Quaddafi's Libya, for instance) similar sentiments govern the political authorities' perceptions of the military establishment.Google Scholar

page 100 note 4 Some several hundred Young Pioneers were sent on courses and summer camps to Moscow, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.

page 100 note 5 Afrifa, op. cit. p. 86.

page 102 note 1 Ben Bella's efforts to strengthen his power base by the formation of a peoples' militia in mid-1965 was clearly a major determinant in Colonel Houari Boumedienne's coup of June 1965. In Mali, the young subalterns led by Lieutenant Moussa Traoré, who seized power in November 1968, were motivated by a desire to clip the wings of Keita's popular militia. Intervention based partly on the ‘counter-weight’ motive came about in Peru in 1948 when President Bustamenta attempted to form such a force (as was also the case in Venezuela that year). And in Congo-Brazzaville, Captain Marien Ngouabi's coup in 1968 was largely a response to the creation of the Cuban-trained Mouvement national de la révolution. Robert Mugabe's North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade in Zimbabwe, which has been described by the Prime Minister as havinga gukurahundi (anti-dissident) rôle, and some units of the Uganda army (also supervised by Korean communists), appear to have been groomed, partly at least, for a ‘guardian’ rôle, but in neither country have they (yet) assumed a separate status from the regular military hierarchy.

page 103 note 1 Gutteridge, William F., The Military in African Politics (London, 1969), p. 105.Google Scholar