Operation Guitar Boy- Coup Plotters executed

Today in History, exactly 53 years ago, on May 9, 1967, Coup (Operation Guitar Boy) Plotters Lt. Samuel Arthur and Lt. Moses Yeboah were executed by firing squad at Teshie Range after being sentenced to death on May 5, 1967.

On April 17, 1967, Major General Emmanuel kwasi Kotoka who was a member of the ruling National Liberation Council (NLC) which came to power in Ghana in a military coup d’état on 24 February 1966 was killed in an abortive coup attempt involving junior officers. It was code named “Guitar boy”.

The rebellion led by Lt. Samuel Arthur, Lt. Moses Yeboah and second Lt. Osei-Poku in Accra on April 17, 1967, resulted in the deaths of two soldiers. One was Lt. General Emmanuel Kotoka, a member of the ruling National Liberation Council, who was killed by Lt. Moses Yeboah. Code named “Operation Guitar Boy”, Lt. Samuel Arthur confessed to being the leader of a 122-man reconnaissance unit which attacked key points in Accra before dawn. Lt. Yeboah was his second-in-command.

 Lt. Samuel Arthur was found guilty of:

1. Conspiracy against the state.
2. Attacking Accra.
3. Killing a captain who refused to give him the keys to an armory.

Lt. Moses Yeboah was found guilty of:

1. Conspiracy against the state.
2. Attacking Accra.
3. Killing Lt. Gen. Kotoka.

Both men were found guilty on all counts and sentenced to death by firing squad.

The third officer, 22-year-old Second Lt. Ebenezer Osei-Poku, was found guilty of:

1. Conspiracy and subversion.

He was found not guilty of attempting to kill Lt. Gen. Joseph Ankrah, the chairman of the National Liberation Council. He was jailed for 30 years. The sentences were read out by the president of the tribunal, Air Marshal Michael Otu.

Lt. Osei-Poku was later released by the military government of General Ignatius Acheampong, and later granted an unconditional and absolute pardon under the government of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) in 1979.

Lt. Osei-Poku later testified before a National Reconciliation Commission hearing in 2003. He claimed that Lt. Samuel Arthur had “deceived” Lt. Moses Yeboah by informing him that the operation was an anti-smuggling exercise, and that Yeboah did not realise that he had been part of an attempt to oust the National Liberation Council (NLC).