Rare photo of Acheampong, Utuka moments before execution resurfaces

A rare photograph showing former Head of State General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong and Major General Edward Kwaku Utuka moments before their execution has resurfaced.

The image shared by Adeyinka Makinde captures the two military officers hooded and tied to execution stakes as they awaited a firing squad at the Teshie Military Shooting Range in Accra.

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Acheampong and Utuka were executed on June 16, 1979, after being sentenced to death by decree of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). The AFRC had seized power just 12 days earlier, following a violent uprising led by junior officers and soldiers in the Ghana Armed Forces.

General Acheampong was born in 1931 at Trabuom in the Ashanti Region, then part of the British-ruled Gold Coast. He was raised in the Roman Catholic faith and worked as a stenographer before joining the British colonial army as a private in 1951.

He later received officer training at Aldershot in England and was commissioned into the Ghana Army as a Lieutenant in 1959.

During his military career, Acheampong served with the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Congo in the early 1960s. Following the overthrow of Dr Kwame Nkrumah's government, he was appointed Chairman of the Western Regional Committee of Administration as a lieutenant colonel.

At the time of the January 13, 1972 coup that removed the government of Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia, Acheampong was the Commanding Officer of the First Infantry Brigade.

After taking power in the bloodless coup, Acheampong established the National Redemption Council (NRC). His government suspended the 1969 Constitution, banned political parties and political activities, and detained individuals considered a threat to the military regime.

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His rule ended in 1979 when the AFRC overthrew the Supreme Military Council government. He was subsequently tried and executed alongside Major General Utuka.

The resurfaced photograph remains one of the few known images documenting the final moments before their execution.

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