Renowned Ghanaian business mogul Sir Sam Jonah has called on President John Dramani Mahama and relevant state authorities to restore the military rank of former Head of State, General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, arguing that his rank should not have been withdrawn following his execution in 1979.
Speaking at the second edition of the General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong Public Lecture, Sir Sam Jonah said the restoration of the former military leader’s rank should not be determined by whether he was a good or bad leader, but by the principle that a soldier’s rank, earned through years of service, should not be taken away by decree and settled through execution.
“The facts are simple. Acheampong was stripped of his rank by decree. He was shot without trial. No court convicted him of anything. Removing a leader is not the same as curing a nation. In a nation of laws, a soldier’s rank, earned over a lifetime of service, is not removed by decree and settled by a firing squad. I add my voice respectfully to ask those who are in authority, His Excellency, the President, the Armed Forces Council, and, where the law permits, Parliament, to restore the rank of General Kutu Acheampong.”
He argued that General Acheampong’s place in Ghana’s history must be properly reconsidered, insisting that many of the national challenges he confronted during his leadership remain unresolved nearly five decades later.
He therefore challenged Ghanaians to look beyond external constraints and confront what he described as the country’s reluctance to believe in its own capacity to achieve national development.
“Every problem he confronted is still with us. We are still arguing about debt. We are still importing rice. We are still bargaining over who benefits from what lies below, beneath our soil. And when we look in the mirror, our greatest obstacle is still not the outsider, but our own reluctance to believe that we can do it by ourselves.”
The lecture, held under the theme “Breaking the Silence: The Human and Political Complexities Behind the Leadership of General Kutu Acheampong,” seeks to revisit the historical and political circumstances surrounding the former Head of State’s leadership and legacy.
Sir Sam Jonah’s appeal, therefore, adds to calls for a more balanced historical assessment of General Acheampong, whose leadership remains a subject of debate in Ghana’s political history.
By Samuel Yeboah Adams
