I was a chief architect in removing Acheampong out of power – Nunoo-Mensah

Brigadier General Joseph Nunoo-Mensah, former Chief of Defence Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces, has revealed that he was the Chief architect of the 1978 coup d’état which saw the overthrow of Ignatius Kutu Acheampong’s government.

According to him, his outfit thought the military hierarchy was going astray because as a military officer, their mandate was not to rule Ghana but to defend Ghana.

“When General Acheampong took power and we saw that things were not going the way they should go, I was one of those who removed him from power,” he said with smiles.

He added that the coup was not done out of any malice but to put Ghana on the right part because the country was going astray.

General Nunoo-Mensah who was speaking at the 3rd Revolutionary Lecture Series to mark June 4 uprising indicated that June 4 was not a coup d’état but it was the anger of the young military officers to their senior.

As a senior officer at that time, General Nunoo-Mensah said he was also a target of June 4 even though he understood the anger of his juniors.

“Today you walk in Ghana and see many things which will make you angry and nobody seems to care,” he said.