BROKEN HEART: “I was brokenhearted” — Major Patrick Adjei-Ampofo Recalls Learning he Would Help Overthrow Nkrumah

For Major Patrick Adjei-Ampofo, the news that he was about to take part in the overthrow of Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, was not simply a military assignment. It was deeply personal.

The young officer was a member of a family with strong ties to Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP). In the constituency where his family lived, CPP activity was prominent, and his aunties were strong supporters of the party.

So when the military operation that would eventually lead to Nkrumah’s overthrow was revealed to him, the reality hit hard.

“It was terrible,” Major Adjei-Ampofo recalled.

He said his family’s political loyalties made the situation particularly painful.

“My family were staunch CPP,” he explained.

According to the retired officer, the area where his family lived was a centre of political activity, with members of the party’s Action Troopers also frequenting the area.

His aunties, he said, were particularly committed CPP supporters.

Then, while the young officer and his colleagues were at Dodowa Junction, the nature of their mission became clear.

They were going to overthrow the government.

“I was brokenhearted,” Major Adjei-Ampofo said.

For a young soldier whose family supported the very government he was being ordered to help remove, it was an extraordinary conflict between personal loyalty and military duty.

But there was little room for hesitation.

As a soldier, Major Adjei-Ampofo said he understood that an operational order was not something he could simply reject.

He later explained that refusing the order could have serious consequences.

“I couldn’t have refused an order,” he said. “That was a court martial case. I couldn’t have. I had to go.”

And so, despite the emotional burden, the young officer went with his men.

In the early hours of February 24, 1966, he would find himself at the centre of the military operation at Flagstaff House.

What followed was a terrifying encounter with gunfire, a burning military truck and a recoilless gun that nearly killed him.

Years later, however, it was the emotional side of that night that remained just as striking.

Major Adjei-Ampofo eventually returned home and was confronted by the people closest to him.

His mother and aunties were reportedly saddened by what had happened.

“Why did you do it?” they asked him.

His answer was simple.

“I didn’t do it.”

For Major Adjei-Ampofo, February 24, 1966, was therefore more than a historic military operation.

It was a moment when his duty as a soldier collided with the political loyalties of his own family leaving him, in his own words, “brokenhearted.”