Divide et Impera: Civilian Control of the Military in Ghana's Second and Third Republics

Simon Baynham

doi:10.1017/S0022278X00055002

Divide et Impera: Civilian Control of the Military in Ghana's Second and Third Republics

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008

Simon Baynham

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An earlier contribution to this Journal addressed itself to the question of how Kwame Nkrumah tried to subordinate his military forces to the civil authority of the Convention People's Party during the Ghanaian First Republic, 1960–6.1 It was argued that the pattern of objective control inherited from the British colonial authorities was cast aside in favour of an entirely new subjective mechanism: ‘This involved the orchestration of a programme of military diversification in which new security organisations were formed and existing ones split up’.2 Thisarticle will continue that theme by examining how civilian politicians attempted to confront the same dilemma in the Second and Third Republics during 1969–72 and 1979–81, respectively.

Type: Articles
Information: The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , December 1985 , pp. 623 - 642

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X00055002 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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^{page 623 note 1} Baynham, Simon, ‘Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?: the case of Nkrumah's National Security Service’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 23, 1, 03 1985, pp. 87–103.Google Scholar

^{page 623 note 2} Ibid. p. 89.

^{page 624 note 1} The Æsir were gods in Nordic mythology who, having triumphed over their foes, were intent on improving the world. One of their tasks was to bind and incapacitate Fenris, a wolf-like monster- a feat they were eventually able to achieve. Guerber, H. A., Myths of the Norsemen (London, 1922), pp. 91–4.Google Scholar

^{page 625 note 1} Only a few such studies exist: Enloe, C. H., Police, Military and Ethnicity (New Brunswick, N.J., 1980);Google ScholarPachter, Elise Forbes, ‘Contra-Coup: civilian control of the military in Guinea, Tanzania, and Mozambique’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 20, 4, 12 1982, pp. 595–612;Google ScholarCharlton, R., ‘Predicting African Military Coups’, in Futures (Guildford), 1983, pp. 281–92;Google Scholar and Goldsworthy, David, ‘Civilian Control of the Military in Black Africa’, in African Affairs (London), 80, 318, 01 1981, pp. 49–71,Google Scholar and ‘Armies and Politics in Civilian Regimes’, in Baynham, Simon (ed), Military Power and Politics in Black Africa (London, 1986), pp. 97–128.Google Scholar

^{page 625 note 2} Nordlinger, Eric A., Soldiers in Politics: military coups and governments (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1977), p. 11.Google Scholar

^{page 626 note 1} Baynham, ‘Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?’, p. 90.

^{page 626 note 2} Nordlinger, op. cit. pp. 15–19; and Luckham, Robin, ‘A Comparative Typology of Civil-Military Relations’, in Government and Opposition (London), 6, 1, Winter 1971, pp. 23–4.Google Scholar

^{page 626 note 3} van Doorn, Jacques, ‘Political Change and the Control of the Military’, in Doorn, van (ed.), Military Profession and Military Regimes (The Hague, 1970), p. 13.Google Scholar

^{page 626 note 4} Huntington, Samuel P., The Soldier and the State (New York, 1957), p. 84.Google Scholar

^{page 626 note 5} Nordlinger, op. cit. pp. 13 and 18.

^{page 627 note 1} Ghanaian Times (Accra), 28 02 1966.Google Scholar

^{page 627 note 2} Finer, Samuel E., ‘Military Disengagement from Politics’, in collected papers on The Politics of Demilitarisation (London, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 1963), p. 3.Google Scholar

^{page 627 note 3} Ibid.

^{page 628 note 1} Nordlinger, op. cit. p. 207.

^{page 628 note 2} Ibid. p. 208.

^{page 628 note 3} Cf. ‘Ghana without Nkrumah’, 1, ‘The Winter of Discontent’ by Irving Markovitz, and 2, ‘The Men of Change’ by Kraus, Jon, in Africa Report (Washington, D.C.), 11, 4, 04 1966, pp. 10–20.Google Scholar

^{page 629 note 1} Ocran, A. K., A Myth is Broken: an account of the Ghana coup d'état of 24th February 1966 (London, 1968), p. 94.Google Scholar

^{page 629 note 2} For a recent distillation of much of the theoretical and empirical work on demilitarisation, see the special issue of the Third World Quarterly (London), 7, 1, 01 1985, entitled ‘Back to the Barracks’.Google Scholar

^{page 629 note 3} Military régimes also need to be in the business of controlling armed forces from disaffected segments lodged within the military establishment itself – an area of enquiry circumvented even more systematically than the topic here.

^{page 630 note 1} The data which follows in the next four paragraphs is largely condensed from Baynham, Simon, ‘Civilian Rule and the Coup d'Etat: the case of Busia's Ghana’, in The Journal of the Royal United Services Institute (London), 123, 3, 09 1978, pp. 27–33.Google Scholar

^{page 631 note 1} Enloe, op. cit. p. 11.

^{page 631 note 2} Changes in the ethnic representation of officers at different levels of the hierarchy during this period are detailed in Baynham, Simon, The Military and Politics in Nkrumah's Ghana (Boulder, 1986), Epilogue.Google Scholar

^{page 632 note 1} Chazan, Naomi, An Anatomy of Ghanaian Politics: managing political recession, 1969–1982 (Boulder, 1983), p. 52.Google Scholar

^{page 632 note 2} Goldsworthy, ‘Civilian Control of the Military in Black Africa’, p. 58.

^{page 632 note 3} Card, Emily and Callaway, Barbara J., ‘Ghanaian Politics: the elections and after’, in Africa Report, 20, 3, 1970, p. 15.Google Scholar

^{page 632 note 4} Baynham, Simon, ‘Soldier and State in Ghana’, in Armed Forces and Society (Chicago), 4, 2, Summer 1978, pp. 155–68, and ‘Civilian Rule and the Coup d'Etat’, p. 32.Google Scholar

^{page 633 note 1} Interview, Kumasi, 18 April 1974.

^{page 633 note 2} Owusu, Maxwell, Uses and Abuses of Political Power: a case study of continuity and change in the politics of Ghana (Chicago, 1970).Google Scholar

^{page 633 note 3} In contrast to earlier parts of this article, which rely on extensive field research in Ghana during the mid-1970s, much of this section on the Third Republic leans heavily on secondary sources such as Africa (London), Africa Confidential (London), Africa Report, Africa Research Bulletin (Exeter), Africa Contemporary Record (London), Ghana Newsletter (London), Ghana Nieusbrief (The Hague), and West Africa for empirical data.Google Scholar

^{page 633 note 4} Austin, Dennis, ‘Introduction’, in Austin, and Luckham, Robin (eds.), Politicians and Soldiers in Ghana, 1966–1972 (London, 1975), p. 5.Google Scholar

^{page 634 note 1} Office of the Defence Adviser, British High Commission, List of Officers on Secondment, Ghana, 1978 (Accra, 1978).Google Scholar

^{page 635 note 1} For a discussion and interpretation of these events, see Hansen, Emmanuel and Collins, Peter, ‘The Army, the State, and the “Rawlings Revolution” in Ghana’, in African Affairs, 79, 314, 01 1980, pp. 3–23.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 635 note 2} Oquaye, Mike, Politics in Ghana, 1972–1979 (Accra, 1980), p. 158.Google Scholar

^{page 635 note 3} Ghanaian Times, 25 September 1979.

^{page 636 note 1} Africa Confidential, 21, 1, 2 01 1980, p. 2.Google Scholar

^{page 636 note 2} Both officers, one a former A.F.R.C. member, the other attending a course at the Staff College, Camberley, requested anonymity.

^{page 637 note 1} West Africa, 10 September 1979, p. 1639.

^{page 638 note 1} Ibid. 22 October 1979, p. 1926.

^{page 638 note 2} Asante, Ben, ‘The Return of Rawlings’, in Africa Now (London), 10, 02 1982, pp. 40–1.Google Scholar

^{page 638 note 3} ‘Since June 4’, Limann said only weeks after the hand-over, ‘I have been holding a time bomb in my hand. Every day before I go to bed, I hear there will be a coup, but let anybody try and we will be starved.’ Africa Confidential, 20, 1, 2 January 1980, p. 2.

^{page 638 note 4} Africa, 103, 03 1980, p. 20.Google Scholar

^{page 639 note 1} Goldsworthy, ‘Armies and Politics in Civilian Regimes’, p. 117.

^{page 639 note 2} Africa Confidential, 23, 1, 6 01 1982, p. 6.Google Scholar

^{page 640 note 1} Many of the details were released by Rawlings at a press conference reported in the Daily Graphic (Accra), 14 02 1980.Google Scholar See, too, Okeke, Barbara E., 4 June: a revolution betrayed (Enugu, 1982), pp. 170–3.Google Scholar

^{page 640 note 2} ‘A deliberate lie’, according to Rawlings in his 31 December 1981 broadcast. West Africa, 11 January 1982, p. 69.

^{page 640 note 3} Africa Confidential, 23, 1, 6 01 1982, p. 5.Google Scholar

^{page 640 note 4} Ibid. 21, 20, 1 October 1980, p. 3. Under the terms of the transitional agreement, Rawlings was permitted to retain a firearm for his personal protection.

^{page 640 note 5} The full background to this episode is explained in a section entitled ‘The Okai-Koi/Koda Affair’, in Oquaye, op. cit. pp. 160–2.

^{page 641 note 1} For details, see Asante, op. cit. p. 41.

^{page 641 note 2} Africa, 103, 03 1980, p. 20.Google Scholar

^{page 641 note 3} Ghanaian political refugees in London. Speculation on the subject also appeared in West Africa, 10 September 1979, p. 1642.

^{page 642 note 1} Interviews, Victor Owusu, Accra, 4 May 1974, and Maxwell Owusu, Kumasi, 1974–5.

^{page 642 note 2} Wiking, Staffan, Military Coups in Sub-Saharan Africa: how to justify illegal assumptions of power (Uppsala, 1983), p. 49.Google Scholar

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