Ghana, 1967 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
On 17 April 1967 a group of junior officers of the Ghana Armed Forces attempted a coup, code named Operation Guitar Boy, against the ruling National Liberation Council, the military and police junta that had overthrown Kwame Nkrumah in February 1966. The attempt was led by Lieutenants Samuel Arthur and Moses Yeboah with 2nd Lieutenant Osei Poku and some 120 soldiers of the 2nd Reconnaissance Regiment. Although it failed, the coup resulted in the assassination of Lieutenant General Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka, a key member of the ruling council, who was shot and killed by Lieutenant Yeboah at the Accra airport.
The plotters briefly seized Broadcasting House, where, in a bizarre touch, they played the Nigerian hit song Guitar Boy that gave the operation its name. The rising was quickly suppressed, the NLC head of state Joseph Ankrah survived, and Arthur and Yeboah were tried and executed in May 1967.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
45204171967- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-452-1967-04-17
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: The National Liberation Council under Joseph Ankrah survived; General Kotoka was killed and the coup leaders were executed.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Luttwak
Wikipedia
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →