Background
Acheampong was born on September 23, 1931 Ashanti, Ghana to Catholic parents of Ashanti origin.
/əˈtʃæmˈpɒŋ/ ə-cham-pong
Acheampong was born on September 23, 1931 Ashanti, Ghana to Catholic parents of Ashanti origin.
He attended the Roman Catholic schools at Trabuom and the St Peter's school (also Catholic) at Kumasi, both in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. He attended the then Central College of Commerce at Agona swedru in the central region of Ghana. He was commissioned in the Ghana Army in 1959, and served as part a member of the UN peacekeepers during the Congo Crisis.
To earn extra money he worked as a labourer and secretary but an ambition to become a teacher dominated his early life and he had a spell as a pupil teacher in 1946. From 1949 to 1951 he was a tutor of the Kumasi Commercial College then vice-principal of Agona Swedru College of Commerce and, finally, principal of the Western Commercial Institute, Achiase.
Two ex-serviceman friends, one just demobbed from the army, persuaded him to become a soldier and he joined as a recruit. In 1958 he was selected for Officer Cadet Training at Mons and completed this in March 1959.
Since then he has been on attachment to a British battalion in West Germany and has done various command and staff duties at the General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in the USA.
In 1962-3, he served with the Ghanaian Peace Keeping Force in the Congo (Zaire) and was mentioned in dispatches. He played no major organisational part in the anti-Nkrumah coup of February 1966, but agreed with its objectives. The NLC made him chairman of the Administrations Commission in the Western Region and in 1969 he became commander of the 5th Battalion. In November 1971 he was made commander of the 1st Infantry Brigade Group in Accra, which puts him in a key position to organise the coup of January 13, 1972. He wanted to do something about the discontent he found among the people he met and, in a speech before the coup, almost gave the show away with his phrase “although I am still a soldier I am also a citizen”.
He said that he struck against “corruption, arbitrary dismissals, economic mismanagement and a host of other malpractices”. Army and police officers and 1,000 civil servants had been arbitrarly dismissed.The Busia government had abused the constitution and failed to declare their assets. In addition he had been particularly aggrieved at the “beggar image" that Busia had created for Ghana on the foreign debit problem.
His zeal and revolutionary fervour, from the outset, amazed everyone. He travelled the country tirelessly and expected a number of fundamental problems to be tackled at a stroke, in true military style. New speeches flowed so fast from his Flagstaff House headquarters that he must have set up something of a record in his early weeks of office.
Acheampong brought a new sense of purpose and dedication to Ghana’s age-old problems. He repudiated those Ghana debts, incurred by the Nkrumah regime, as a result of corrupt contractor finance deals. He gave priority to agricultural production and declared agricultural war years" from 1972 to 1974, determined to make the country self-sufficient in food, supported by Properly functioning agro-industries.
His government finally succeeded in getting the body of Kwamc Nkrumah returned to his native soil. Though Acheampong still endorsed the principles of the 1966 coup, there was no longer a phobia against Nkrumahism and more freedom for the old Nkrumahists. But at first the political leaders of the Busia government were kept in prison without trial. He has said that power would only be handed over to a civilian regime, when he was satisfied that a firm foundation had been laid, both economically and socially.
In foreign policy he reversed Busia’s policy of dialogue with South Africa and took a leading part in Pan-African counsels. At the OAU summit in Rabat in June 1972, Colonel Acheampong sent a message endorsing the principle of an African High Command.
On December 6, 1972, he announced that the government was taking over 55% of all the foreign-owned mining companies. The main timber companies were also added to the list to give Ghana control of the commanding heights of the economy.
On the anniversary of the Ghana coup in January 1973 he set out a Charter of Redemption giving seven goals of action for the nation: “We have a mandate and support of the people to return the country's economy to stability; .. . until this objective is achieved, we do not think it is useful to discuss politics."
Notable historical changes and events introduced or implemented in Ghana during the period under Acheampong include: the change from the imperial to the metric system of measurement, change from driving on the left to right-hand drive in "Operation Keep Right", "Operation Feed Yourself" (a programme aimed at developing self-reliance in agriculture), "National Reconstruction" (aimed at promoting employment and skill for workers), face-lift projects in cities, and the reconstruction/upgrading of stadia to meet international standards.
There were, however, widespread accusations of both the encouragement and endorsement of corruption in the country under his rule.
Royal West African Frontier Force
A straightforward soldier with a powerful, driving personality, who has made his own way from humble family origins. Showing an early desire to succeed and seeing no advancement in the commercial colleges where he was a tutor, he joined the army and rose fast through the ranks. A genuinely religious person, a Catholic, with a puritanical streak that makes him drive himself and others hard. Always interested in politics, he supported the 1966 coup, when his growing administrative abilities were recognised in his appointment as a regional commissioner by the first military government.
Serious political concern, courage, ambition and an unswerving belief in his own abilities, led him to engineer the second coup. Since then he has marked himself by his industry and high work rate. He is always prepared to listen and argue, but can quickly weed out anything phony and can be ruthless in decision. He is seen as a genuine person who commands his men’s loyalty. He insists that nobody should expect any reward out of the coup except the satisfaction they get from doing a good job. He has gradually taken on an increasing amount of work, taking personal responsibility for Finance, Economic Affairs, Defense and finally Public Relations.
His father was a devout Catholic cocoa broker, his mother died when he was only five years old.
Acheampong was married to Mrs. Faustina Acheampong. His grandson is American football player Charlie Peprah. A native of Plano, Texas, Peprah played four seasons at the University of Alabama and was selected in the fifth round of the 2006 NFL Draft by the New York Giants. Peprah is currently a free agent.