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It was hard to come across real issues of corruption against Acheampong, says Agyeman-Duah

A new book authored by Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah captures the “biography of General Acheampong: The Life and Times of Ghana's Head of State”

Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah, a political scientist has said a research he conducted shows that there were no real issues of corruption against General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, a former head of state.

Speaking with Kojo Mensah on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Wednesday, Prof Agyeman-Duah said, “When I reviewed the facts, I realised that the familiar story about General Acheampong − that he was a womaniser, that he was corrupt, and so on − was not the whole truth about the man.”

He added, “When people talk of corruption which was the main charge against him; after my research, it was hard to come across real issues of corruption [against him] … When he was overthrown, they could not discover any significant amount in his local bank account. They did not discover any foreign account…so if he was corrupt where was the money.”

Prof Agyemang-Duah was speaking ahead of the launch of his new book – “General Acheampong: The Life and Times of Ghana’s Head of State” on Thursday (23 September 2021).

He said what puzzled him to write about General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong was that “for all these years, seldom did we hear anything about this gentleman [Acheampong]. Somebody who rose to be a general in the army but that’s not even the most important words. Somebody who determined the destiny of our great country for seven years and somehow he has disappeared completely from our political narratives from our social narratives as if the guy did not exist.

“That was the beginning of my curiosity,” he added.

Glorifying Acheampong

Critics of the book say it is glorifying a coup leader but Prof Agyeman-Duah said “This book is not about glorifying Acheampong as a military officer or glorifying military coups. I hate military coups, I’m a democrat to a fault but I want to look objectively at what he did. People took advantage of his weakness; he was very weak in terms of being too generous…”

He added, “This book is filling a historical gap.”

Prof Agyeman-Duah added, “The first five years of Acheampong I think was very good and very effective. I didn’t have that opinion [of him before writing the book]. I was part of the group that had pedestrian knowledge of him and therefore saw him as corrupt, a womanizer and all kinds of stuff.

“…Otherwise he was weak in controlling his officers because these were soldiers and one reason why the young officers got angry …was that those soldiers who were in government did a new lifestyle. Acheampong’s weakness was that he was too generous to a fault.”

The book- “General Acheampong: The Life and Times of Ghana’s Head of State” is expected to be launched on Thursday (23 September 2021).

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