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“Captain Kojo Tsikata and his group. They were always planning a coup,” Major Adjei-Ampofo recalled in an interview with Kafui Dey.
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Captain Kojo Tsikata and his group were repeatedly plotting coups against the Acheampong government, with one of their alleged plots becoming known as the chilling “One Man, One Machete” operation, Major Patrick Adjei-Ampofo has revealed.
According to Major Adjei-Ampofo, the activities of the group were closely monitored by the regime’s intelligence apparatus, which had managed to plant an informant inside the group.
“Captain Kojo Tsikata and his group. They were always planning a coup,” Major Adjei-Ampofo recalled in an interview with Kafui Dey.
He said the repeated plotting created an atmosphere of constant tension within the military establishment.
“Every day, every night, because we had the intelligence. We go through the intelligence, you can’t sleep,” he said.
“This one is planning a coup, this one is planning a coup. Every day.”
Major Adjei-Ampofo said security officers did not always immediately arrest suspected plotters. In many cases, they simply made the conspirators aware that their activities had been detected.
“Most of the time, we just scared them off,” he said.
The tactic was straightforward.
“Just by letting them know that we are aware,” he explained. “Hey, watch it. We are aware.”
But that did not necessarily end the conspiracies.
“Then they would disperse and regroup,” he said.
According to Major Adjei-Ampofo, there were two particularly serious coup plots that intelligence officers allowed to develop before the suspects were eventually arrested.
“One of them was the one-man, one-matchete group,” he said.
The name referred to the alleged plan of the plotters to attack and kill people with machetes.
“They planned to kill every man they met with a matchet. That’s what we called them,” Major Adjei-Ampofo said.
He explained that the phrase “One Man, One Machete” originated from the group itself.
“They coined the word themselves,” he said.
The authorities, however, were not operating blindly.
“We had somebody planted in their group,” Major Adjei-Ampofo revealed.
The informant allegedly fed intelligence to the authorities from inside the group, giving the security establishment insight into its plans.
“So he was reporting to us. So he said, ‘One-man, one-machete,’” he recalled.
The intelligence operation eventually culminated in the arrest and trial of members of the group.
According to Major Adjei-Ampofo, the plotters were convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad.
But he says he immediately opposed the prospect of executions.
“And I said to Acheampong, ‘No, no, no bloodshed. We don’t want that,’” he recalled.
Major Adjei-Ampofo said General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong himself was initially unwilling to shed blood over the coup plot.
“He himself, he didn’t want bloodshed,” he said.
But, according to his account, hardliners around Acheampong pushed for a tougher response.
"But he had radicals around him. Kwame Baah, Agbo, Selormey," he said.
"Kwame Baah and others were saying that we've got to show them."
Acheampong eventually commuted the death sentences to life imprisonment, Major Adjei-Ampofo said.
“And then he came under attack,” he recalled.
The pressure, he said, later intensified, with Acheampong indicating that he was prepared to sign the death warrants.
“He said, ‘This time I’ll do it. He said, this time I’m going to sign the death warrant,’” Major Adjei-Ampofo recalled.
Then came the moment Major Adjei-Ampofo had feared.
Acheampong called him.
“And he called me, he said, ‘Ebɛ yɛ den?’ to wit ‘what should I do?’ I said, ‘Don’t do it,’” he said.
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