Find out who ordered execution of my husband - Mrs Afrifa

Accra, July 10, GNA - Mrs Christine Afrifa, wife of Lieutenant General Akwasi Amankwa Afrifa, Former Head of State during the National Liberation Council regime, on Wednesday appeared before the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) and requested to know who authorised the execution of her husband in 1979.

Mrs Afrifa also appealed to the Commission to de-confiscate Gen Afrifa's assets as well as a prompt action on the Greenstreet Report that recommended benefits for Ex-Presidents and Heads of State. The former First Lady, now declared British, said she had no ill feelings against those who executed her husband.

She said she had also encouraged her seven children to feel the same way, pointing out that revenge would perpetuate a cycle of vengeance in which nobody would win.

Mrs Afrifa said her family's woes and hardships began in 1972 when General Kutu Acheampong, who had been a Commissioner when her husband was Head of State, staged a military coup and assumed power as Head of State.

Mrs Afrifa said not long after her husband had gone to ask General Acheampong why he staged the coup he was arrested, placed under house arrest, and later incarcerated at the James Fort Prison for 18 months. She said he was kept in isolation while in jail, as the Prison was then a women's prison.

She said after Gen. Afrifa was released, they went to settle at the husband's a village, Krobo and went into farming.

Mrs Afrifa said Gen Afrifa refused to join the General Acheampong's Union Government in 1978 and he subsequently came under constant harassment. He went into exile in Togo and then the United Kingdom. She said her husband returned to Ghana, after which she later heard that he had been executed.

"Nobody has been able to tell me why he was arrested and killed.... All his property had been confiscated until today," she said.

Mrs Afrifa said she had petitioned all governments since then, and had had only her matrimonial home and a car returned to her.

Her children had also petitioned the government of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) to the present government but had had very little response. She said the Sowah Assets Committee had cleared her husband.

On pension benefits of her husband, she said she was being given her monthly share after President John Agyekum Kufuor ordered the exhumation of the bodies of the Generals executed along with her husband, but the Accountant General's Department had stopped for some time now. She said she wondered why the payment was being withheld since others were still receiving theirs.

Mrs Afrifa said her lawyer also approached Mr Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, Minister of Tourism and Beautification of the Capital City, on a lump sum of 41 million cedis recommended in the Greenstreet Report, but the Minister told her lawyer that "they were looking into it". According to Mrs Afrifa, she had not yet received the 500 sheep seized from their Katakyie Farms, officially confiscated to the state and sent to the Ghana National Reconstruction Corporation in Kumasi.

Commissioner General Emmanuel Alexander Erskine said the work of the Commission would not be complete if it failed to examine the case of the executed Generals.


General Erskine was a member of a committee President John Agyekum Kufuor appointed to see to the exhumation and reburial of the bodies of the executed generals.


Chairman Justice Kweku Amua-Sekyi said the Commission would get in touch immediately with the Accountant General's Department to see what it could do to restore the suspended pension payment to her.


Ex-Lance Corporal Emmanuel Owusu Aninakwah of the Airborne Force in Tamale said he was among the soldiers assigned to guard the Gondar Barracks after the December 31, 1981 Revolution.


Later, he was called to meet an assembly of the Chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, Captain Pattington and Ex-Captain Kojo Tsikata, at which Capt Pattington assigned him to start working with Capt Tsikata.


He said he worked with Capt Tsikata until the murder of the judges. But after the killing of the judges in 1983, there was divided loyalty between the guards at the Gondar Barracks, most of who were his colleagues from the Ex-Boys' Brigade.

Some went to the side of the Chairman Rawlings and others supported Sergeant Alolga Akatapore, a member of the PNDC and also of the Boys' Brigade.


He said there were rumours that Capt. Tsikata organised the killing of the judges.


He said around November 1982, he told Capt Tsikata on a day's notice and left for his home unit at the Tamale Airborne Force. Capt. Tsikata did not object.


Ex-Cpl Aninakwa said shortly after leaving for Tamale, he heard of a coup attempt on November 11, 1982, and that one Lt Achana, who was said have been involved, was killed.


He said while he was in Accra to do his medical test for a peacekeeping operation in Lebanon, he went to one Dr Antwi's house with some friends.


Ex-Cpl Aninakwa said while they were having a meal in Dr Antwi's house at Achimota, they heard the firing of guns.

When he came out he saw one Negedzi who fired at his stomach, but missed and the bullet hit his thighs.


After the shooting, Ex-Cpl Aninakwa said he and his colleagues were arrested. They were told they were being sent to Gondar Barracks, but they were rather sent to the Air Force where they were beaten with blocks and pestles until he became unconscious.


Ex-Cpl Aninakwa said he was sent to the 37 Military Hospital where he regained consciousness on the third day.


He said after five months on admission at the hospital he asked the doctor to release him. He told the doctor that he preferred prison life to being in detention in the hospital.


Upon his release, he was detained in the Field Engineers Regiment Guardroom, but an officer told soldiers at the guardroom that he should be sent to his mother unit.


He said while in the Field Engineers' Guardroom, one Negedzi came there and told him he would come and visit him in the evening, but he knew he would kill him if he came back.

He said two people came with a small car and took him to the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) where he said he met Mr Peter Nanfuri, former Head of the BNI, who told him Capt Tsikata did not want to see him in the guardroom.


He said along with one Opare Sarpong, Samuel Abrokwah and himself they were handcuffed and sent separately to the Cape Coast, Anomabu and Winneba Prisons.


He said he spent seven months at Anomabu Prison. He described one Mr Kuiper, the Director of the Prison, as very wicked. He was later transferred to Cape Coast but his attempted break jail failed.


He said they were later brought to the Nsawam Prisons and then to the Winneba Prisons and then to the Nsawam Prisons.


Ex-Cpl Aninakwa said in all he spent nine years and one month in jail adding that he had permanent scars on his thigh and back.


He said he became very bitter against the PDNC government after his release and later became the bodyguard of Prof Albert Adu-Boahen, Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in 1992. However, in his attempt to flee the country when the NPP lost the polls, he was arrested at the Asuofiri border and locked up in an Abidjan cell.

One Fred Essien later employed him together with other refugees in a security firm.


However, he fired them and alerted the security agencies to tail and harass them when they refused to be part of a coup in Ghana to overthrow the ruling government.


He said he spent eight years in exile and came back in 2000. Ex-Cpl Aninakwa said he was given only 1.950 million cedis representing 80 per cent of pension after working in the Army for 12 years adding he needed his pension.


Ex-Cpl Aninakwa said political detainees should be separated from criminals in the prisons.