General Kwasi Amankwaa Afrifa
Following a successful coup d’état in February 1966 to become the second head of state during a military junta, General Kwasi Afrifa became part of the senior military officers ordered to be killed by late Jerry John Rawlings.
General Akwasi Amankwaa Afrifa, the right-hand man to Gen. Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka, served as a head of state following the unexpected resignation of Gen. Joseph Ankrah in 1969.
The senior military officer, born on April 24, 1936, attended Adisadel College in Cape Coast, Ghana, and began his career in the Ghana Armed Forces after he was commissioned in 1960.
Gen. Akwasi Afrifa attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England. He also attended the School of Infantry in Warminster, United Kingdom, and was an alumnus of the Defense College, Teshie, Ghana.
He governed for three years and handed power to Dr. Kofi Busia after he successfully brought Ghana back to its democratic regime.
Afrifa then retired from the army and began farming and politics, where he contested for a parliamentary seat.
He was arrested on his farm at Mampong under orders of the late Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings in 1979. He was detained and tried by a Special Court Marshal on charges of corruption while in office.
General Akwasi Afrifa was sentenced to die by firing squad under the approval of Rawlings on June 26, 1979, 10 days after the execution of the first military head of state, Gen. Ignatius Kutu Acheampong.
During the time of his trial, the late Gen. Afrifa had won the parliamentary elections at Mampong but didn’t get the opportunity to serve his people as a Member of Parliament.
His body was buried without ceremony at the Nsawam prison cemetery in Ghana. At the time of death, the senior military officer was 43 years old.
Gen. Afrifa was married to Christiane Afrifa, and together, they had nine children.
In 2002, President John Kufuor approved the exhumation of his remains from the cemetery for reburial in his hometown of Krobo, following a petition by the wives of the eight slain generals executed under Jerry John Rawlings in 1979.
Meanwhile, watch this Ghana Month special edition of People and Places as we hear the story of how the head of Kwame Nkrumah’s bronze statue was returned after 43 years, below:
JHM/AE
