Ghanaians don’t appreciate my father enough, says Jackie Ankrah

Ace broadcaster and singer Jackie Ankrah has said Ghanaians must celebrate past leaders like her father, former head of state Lieutenant General J A Ankrah as a way of inspiring the new generation to do more for the country.

Speaking on the Between Hours show on Monday (21 November) with Naa Ashorkor, the singer said: “And just recently he was honoured at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College, and when they wrote and spoke about him, I was proud because my father has done so many things that we don’t get told about, because we rewrite history all the time.”

“But I think these are things that we must talk about to encourage one another and encourage the next generation.

“We don’t talk about my father much, which is unfortunate because of the Nkrumah overthrow. My father was the first in many things, but my father was an amazing, remarkable, incredible soldier,” the songwriter added.

About J A Ankrah

Joseph Arthur Ankrah (18 August 1915 – 25 November 1992) was a Ghanaian army general who was the head of state of Ghana from 1966 to 1969 in the position of chairman of the National Liberation Council. Before becoming head of state, Ankrah served as the first commander of the Ghana Army.

He was Ghana’s first military head of state. Ankrah also served as chairperson of the Organisation of African Unity from 24 February 1966 to 5 November 1966.

Ankrah joined the Gold Coast Regiment in 1939. On the outbreak of World War II, Ankrah was mobilized into the Royal West African Frontier Force. While his Brigade was in East Africa in 1940, he was transferred to the Record Office in Accra with the rank of Warrant Officer Class II and made second-in-command.

In October 1946, he went to the Marshfield Officer Cadets Training Unit in the United Kingdom and graduated in February 1947 as the first African officer in the Gold Coast Army. He was commissioned a lieutenant in 1947 and became the first African camp commandant at the Army Headquarters.

He was later made the first Ghanaian Chief Instructor of the Education Unit. He was promoted Major in 1956 and became the first African to command an all-African company, the Charlie Company of the First Battalion at Tamale, Ghana. He later became Lieutenant Colonel and took over the whole battalion.

He rose to the rank of colonel by 1960, at a time when there were few Ghanaian officers at that level. During the United Nations Operation in the Congo, he was the Brigade Commander of the force-based at Luluabourg, Kasai in the present-day Democratic Republic of Congo.

He was the only Ghanaian awarded the Military Cross in Leopoldville for acts of unsurpassed gallantry in Congo in 1961.