Military Beatings, Deflated Tyres: How UG students were treated during 1966 coup demo

Chief of Larteh Ahenease and Benkumhene of the Akuapem Traditional Area, Osabarima Enyinɛ Asiedu Okoo Ababio III, has recounted how University of Ghana students who demonstrated at Flagstaff House following the overthrow of Ghana’s first President, Kwame Nkrumah, were allegedly subjected to beatings by soldiers and police officers.

Osabarima Enyinɛ Asiedu Okoo Ababio III, who was a student of the University of Ghana at the time, said the incident occurred in February 1966, a day after the military coup that removed Kwame Nkrumah from office.

Speaking to media personality Kafui Dey, the traditional ruler recalled that he and other students boarded buses from the University of Ghana, Legon, to Flagstaff House in Accra to demonstrate against the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah.

According to him, the students were allowed by the soldiers and police officers stationed at Flagstaff House to enter the premises and carry out their demonstration.

However, he said the situation changed when the students were ready to return to Legon, as they discovered that the tyres of the buses they had travelled in had been deflated.

He said the security personnel subsequently subjected students to beatings, leaving them with no means of returning to the university campus.

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“We boarded buses to go to Flagstaff House to go to demonstrate. The soldiers and police men there allowed us to enter but before we came back, they had deflated the tyres on the buses and then started beating us,” he recalled.

Asked whether he personally received some of the blows from the soldiers and police officers, Osabarima Enyinɛ Asiedu Okoo Ababio III declined to disclose details of the beating.

Instead, he recounted that he was forced to walk from Accra back to the University of Ghana, Legon campus because the buses that had transported the students had been rendered unusable after their tyres were deflated.

He described the experience as a traumatic one, saying it influenced his decision never to participate in another demonstration, despite the fact that students of the University of Ghana continued to organise demonstrations on several occasions.

“That was a very bitter experience and that taught me a lesson. Legon students demonstrated on several occasions; I never took party again. Because the beating some of us suffered at the Flagstaff House and having walked from Accra to Legon, it wasn't easy,” he noted.

The account comes against the backdrop of the events of February 24, 1966, when the military, in collaboration with the police, overthrew Kwame Nkrumah in a coup codenamed Operation Cold Chop.

At the time of the coup, Dr Nkrumah was outside Ghana on a diplomatic visit to China. His government was subsequently removed from power and replaced by the National Liberation Council (NLC), an eight-member military and police administration.

The NLC was made up of four senior military officers and four senior police officers. Following the coup, the council dissolved Parliament, banned Dr Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP) and suspended Ghana’s 1960 Constitution.

Coup Demo Beatings

In February 1966, students from the University of Ghana went to Flagstaff House to demonstrate, just a day after the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah.

Watch Osabarima Enyinɛ Asiedu Okoo Ababio III recount how soldiers and police deflated the tyres of their bus… pic.twitter.com/8zTIxZHwKG

— Kafui Dey (@KafuiDey) September 9, 2026