Sam Jonah calls for honest reassessment of General I.K. Acheampong’s leadership

Business leader and University of Cape Coast Chancellor Sir Sam Jonah has called for a fresh and balanced examination of the leadership of former Head of State General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, urging Ghanaians to confront the complexities of his time in office.

Delivering the Second General I.K. Acheampong Memorial Lecture at the Marriott Hotel in Accra on Friday, November 13, 2026, Sir Jonah said the country needed to move beyond the silence and polarised narratives surrounding the former military leader.

He said the lecture offered an opportunity to examine Acheampong’s record, including his policies, achievements and shortcomings.

“Our forebears left us a saying for an evening such as this: Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi. It is not wrong to go back for what you have forgotten. That is what we shall do tonight. We shall break the silence,” he said.

Sir Jonah disclosed that he had personally benefited from policies introduced under Acheampong’s government, particularly those that expanded opportunities for Ghanaians in the management of the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation.

He said he joined the mining company in 1969 as an underground miner at Obuasi, three years before the government took control of the company in 1972.

“I am a beneficiary of this man. In 1972 his government took control of the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation and opened its senior management to Ghanaians. I had joined Ashanti three years earlier as an underground miner at Obuasi. The chairs I would one day occupy were built on policies General Acheampong signed into law,” he said.

He, however, clarified that he had never met the former Head of State personally.

“I never knew him. I never sat across a table from him. But my life bears his fingerprints, and I would be a fraud to pretend otherwise,” he added.

Sir Sam Jonah said his intention was neither to glorify Acheampong nor to condemn him without examining the full record of his leadership.

“Ghana has already done both to this man, and neither has served us well. Tonight, I intend to examine the leadership of General Acheampong, the vision and the blindness, the triumph and the disappointment, the man and the system he led, and to let you judge it whole,” he said.

General Acheampong came to power in January 1972 after leading a military coup that overthrew the government of Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia.

His government introduced policies and initiatives including Operation Feed Yourself, which sought to boost domestic food production, and the Yentua policy, under which Ghana repudiated certain external debt obligations.

It also advanced the Union Government proposal, which sought a political arrangement involving civilian and military participation.

Acheampong was removed from power in July 1978 and later executed by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council in June 1979.