Sixty years on, the evidence is unmistakable: the 1966 coup was not a heroic rescue of Ghanaian democracy but a Cold War–entangled rupture that derailed a fragile national project. Though Nkrumah’s rule introduced stringent security measures like the PDA, much of that unfolded amid real assassination plots and sustained external pressure. The officers who claimed to restore freedom instead shattered policy continuity, reversed an ambitious industrialisation drive, and plunged Ghana into decades of instability. The comforting myth of “liberation” obscures a harder truth — February 24, 1966 broke Ghana’s momentum and compromised its sovereignty at a decisive moment in its history.
Ghana’s Interrupted Revolution and Legacy of the 1966 Coup
