The National Liberation Council (NLC) led the Ghanaian government from 24 February 1966 to 1 October 1969.

The body emerged from a coup d’état against the Nkrumah government carried out jointly by the Ghana Police Service and Ghana Armed Forces with collaboration from the Ghana Civil Service.

Leaders of the established 1966 military coup, including army officers Colonel E.K. Kotoka, Major A. A. Afrifa, Lieutenant General (retired) J. A. Ankrah, and Police Inspector General J.W.K. Harlley, justified their takeover by charging that the CPP administration was abusive and corrupt.

In 1964, a constitutional amendment made Ghana a one-party state, with Nkrumah as president for life of both the nation and its party. Nkrumah was deposed in 1966 by the National Liberation Council, under whose supervision international financial institutions privatized many of the country’s state corporations.

Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, also courted the disdain of many people, including those very close to him. In all, there were five assassination attempts made on his life, none of which was successful.

Kwame is an Akan masculine given name among the Akan people (such as the Ashanti and Fante) in Ghana which is given to a boy born on Saturday. Traditionally in Ghana, a child would receive their Akan day name during their Outdooring, eight days after birth.

Today in History: Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown in a coup d'état (Pictures)

The picture above shows Workers demonstrating with placards 06 March 1966 in Accra.

In the center, on one of the placards, a caricature says Kwame Nkrumah is a “Sasabonsan”, which means a “Great Devil”. Following the arrival of Nkrumah to the government, Ghana gets his autonomy from Great Britain, and became independent in 1957.

The military junta took power 24 February 1966 while Nkrumah was away.

6th March 1966: Children around a fallen statue of the self appointed president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah during the coup that overthrew his dictatorship. (Photo by Harry Dempster/Express/Getty Images)

Who helped to orchestrate the overthrow of Nkrumah?

The U.S. government was determined to depose Nkrumah before he managed to unite Africa under one government, working with allies such as Great Britain and Canada to finance, mastermind, and guide the coup.^[4]According to the U.S. State Department at the time, Nkrumah’s “overpowering desire to export his brand of nationalism unquestionably made Ghana one of the foremost practitioners of subversion in Africa.”

He was even mounting an offensive against apartheid South Africa, furnishing money and sabotage training to “extremists” in the African National Congress (ANC) bent on overthrowing the white supremacist regime.^[6]

In the years leading to the coup, the State Department withheld loans to Ghana and worked to lower world cocoa prices through stockpiling in order to deprive Nkrumah of foreign exchange.^[7] The British press reported that 40 CIA officers operated out of the U.S. Embassy “distributing largesse among President Nkrumah’s secret adversaries,” and that their work “was fully rewarded.”^[8]