Ankra, Joseph Arthur

Joseph Arthur Ankra was born on August 18, 1915 in Accra, in the family of a Christian trade mission supervisor, Samuel Paul Cofie Ankrah, and Beatrice Abashie Quaynor . His family had a long-standing military tradition, and Nii Ayi Korkor Sekye Ankrah from the ha and Nii Oto Brafo I ethnic group , which the English, Dutch and Danes had once recognized as local, belonged to it. Field Marshal in the territories of the present Province of Greater Accra ^{[1] [2]} .

Education and sport

In 1921, six- year -old Joseph was sent to study at the Wesleyan Methodist School in English. Wesleyan Methodist School in Accra, where he received the nickname Ankrah Patapaa for his leadership skills. In 1932, he entered the private Accra Academy, one of the leading secondary schools in Ghana ^[3] , and in 1937 received a certificate from the Cambridge English School . Cambridge School as an up-and-coming athlete who showed himself during his school years ^[1] . Having started his sports career at the Aurora Youth Football Club, at the end of the 1930s, young Ankra already played professionally in Ghana 's largest and oldest club , Accra Oak Hearts ( English Hearts Of Oak SC ). A left-wing striker, known as Joe Ankra, he gave himself completely to football, but the outbreak of World War II changed his plans ^[2] .

Military career

In 1939, Joseph Ancra was mobilized as a private in the British Royal Border Troops of West Africa ^[1] . In 1940, his brigade was sent to East Africa to participate in the hostilities against the Italian army in Abyssinia , but Ankra was left in Accra, where he took up a post in the office (Records Office), continuing to play for the club “Accra Oak Hearts” Having received the rank of Warrant Officer 2nd grade, he, nevertheless, found the work of an official too dull and began to seek permission to begin an officer career. Since all the officer posts in the armed forces of the British Gold Coast were occupied by the British, Ankra took a lot of effort and time to get things done. Only in October 1946 he was sent to military courses in Tamale and Teshi, and then sent to officer cadet courses in Manshfield, Great Britain . Marshfield Officer Cadets Training Unit ^[2] .

In February 1947, Joseph Ankra graduated, and, receiving the rank of lieutenant, became the first officer, a native of the Gold Coast ^[1] . Returning to his homeland, he was sent to the headquarters of the military district in Accra and was appointed chief instructor of the training courses. However, career advancement in colonial Ghana proved to be long. Only 9 years later, in 1956, Ankra received the rank of major and was appointed company commander in the 1st Infantry Battalion in Tamal ^[2] . After Ghana gained independence the following year, Joseph Ankra received the rank of lieutenant colonel and the post of battalion commander ^[3] , and in August 1960 , competing with the British, who continued to form the basis of the officer corps of Ghana, Colonel ^[1] .

Congo

In the same year, Colonel Ankra was sent to the newly independent Republic of Congo (Leopoldville) as part of the UN peacekeeping force . There he took the post of assistant commander of the Ghanaian contingent, Major General Henry T. Alexander, with headquarters in Luluaborg , Kasai ^[1] . Alexander characterized Ankra as the most fighting and brutal soldier of Ghana, incredibly decisive and merciless in situations requiring violent actions ^[4] . In the fall of 1960, on his own initiative and risking his own life, he saved the Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba from the soldiers of the national army pursuing him ^[3] . In 1961, Colonel Ankra was the only one of the Ghanaian military who was awarded the Military Cross for his unsurpassed courage, promoted to brigadier generals and, upon his return from Congo, was appointed deputy chief of staff of the Ghanaian defense ^[1] .

At the head of the army of Ghana. Opal

In December of the same 1961, the President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, began purging the armed forces of British officers and dismissed General Alexander from the Ghanaian army. General Joseph Ankra became the commander of the army of Ghana and for the second time in a year received the following military rank - Major General ^[1] . However, in July 1965, Kwame Nkruma suspected Ankra of disloyalty and participation in the conspiracy, removed him from his post and dismissed him from the army. For six months, the dismissed general worked in a secondary civilian position as director of the National Investment Bank ^[5] , until the situation again turned in his favor.

At the head of the country

On February 24, 1966, the commander of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, Colonel Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka, with the support of Police Inspector General John Harley and, according to the plan of Major Akwazi Amankva Afrifa, overthrew the left regime of Kwame Nkrumah. The disgraced general Joseph Arthur Ankra, who had unquestioned authority in the army, became chairman of the National Liberation Council with the rank of lieutenant general and head of state. He declared:

A year later, after an attempted military coup on April 17, 1967 and the death of Kotoka, Ankra also assumed the duties of commander in chief of the armed forces of Ghana. The new regime curtailed the socialist transformations initiated by Nkrumah, cut the budget, stopped building industrial facilities and seaports, froze salaries, and began privatizing most of the 55 state enterprises. One third of 148 state farms were sold, cooperatives were deprived of subsidies, and free secondary education and medical services were liquidated ^[7] . All Soviet specialists left the country, diplomatic relations with Cuba and Guinea were severed, and diplomatic missions of Ghana in the socialist countries were closed ^[8] . However, the policy of Ankra and his associates over time lost all popularity. On February 26, 1968, The Ghanaian Times wrote on the occasion of the second anniversary of the coup - "People who greeted the military-police axis in early 1966 and competed in praises and panegyrics ... now seem disappointed with the regime, they want him to leave soon" ^[4] . The National Liberation Council decided to hold free elections and transfer power to the civilian government.

Joseph Ankra Overseas Travel

• Great Britain , Germany and the USA - September 1967 ^[9] .
• Upper Volta , Ivory Coast , Niger , Togo and Dahomey - January-February 1968 ;
• Ivory Coast - September 1968 ^[10] .

Unexpected departure

At the beginning of 1969, Joseph Ankra, who decided to run for president, entered into a conspiracy with the Nigerian businessman Franz Nzerebe, who was commissioned by the NSO to conduct opinion polls. Nzerebe presented the NSO with data according to which Ankra was the most popular politician in Ghana, ahead of both General Afrifu and the famous opponent of Nkrumah, Professor Kofi Busia . An investigation initiated by Afrifa found that Ankra received money from private foreign firms, and part of the funds was transferred to Franz Nzerebe, which could affect the results of his surveys ^[1] . The amount of bribes received by Ankra, according to government data, was approaching $ 30,000 ^[11] .

Called to a meeting of the National Liberation Council, Ankra explained these financial frauds as saying he wanted to fund public opinion research to determine his chances of presidency. Then he admitted that he wanted to transfer the money to some politicians, whose names were given to the members of the NSO in confidence ^[4] . The scandal decided the political fate of the head of state - on April 2, 1969, an NSO official announcement was published on the voluntary resignation of Lieutenant General Joseph Ankra as head of state after he “admitted his full responsibility for this unfortunate incident” at a meeting of the Council .

Joseph Ankra was dismissed from the army and remained in the capital, where he began to live a private life without interfering in politics. Without any particular complications, he survived three military coups, the repressions of 1979, when three former heads of state were shot, the collapse of two republics and found the birth of the Fourth Republic.

Joseph Arthur Ankra passed away on November 25, 1992 in Accra.

Personal life

In 1965, Ankra married for the third time, to Mildred Christine Akosivor Fugar Akoziuor Fugar (June 12, 1938 - June 9, 2005). In total, he had 18 children ^[1] .

• Joseph Ankra // Africa. Encyclopedic Handbook t.2 /M.1987 - P.271.
• Joseph Ankra (curriculum vitae) // Yearbook of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia . 1967 / M. Soviet Encyclopedia, 1967 - P.600.
• Mirsky G.I. Army and Politics in the Countries of Asia and Africa. / M. 1970
• Ocran, Albert Kwesi (1968). A Myth Is Broken: An Account of the Ghana Coup d'Etat of February 24, 1966. Longmans. ISBN 978-0582645233 . (eng.)
• Jackson, Kofi A. (April 1999). When Gun Rules. Woeli Pub Serv. ISBN 978-9964978570 . (eng.)
• Killick, T. (1978), Development Economics in Action: Economic Policies in Ghana, London: Heinemann, 392 pages
• Wolf-Rüdiger Baumann, Gustav Fochler-Hauke: Biographien zur Zeitgeschichte seit 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3596245532 (Jubiläumsband zur 25. Ausgabe des “Fischer-Weltalmanachs”) (German).