Ghana, 1972 — military coup conspiracy
Event Summary
This entry is coded 16 July 1972, during the internal consolidation of the National Redemption Council in Ghana under Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, roughly six months after the January 1972 coup that ousted Busia. Acheampong had carried out that coup with the help of three officers whose military units were vital to its success: Major Agbo, second-in-command of the First Infantry Battalion at Tema; Major Selormey, second-in-command of the armored regiment; and Major Baah, second-in-command of the Fifth Infantry Battalion in Accra. In the months after taking power, Acheampong moved to remove Agbo, Baah and Selormey, whom he had begun to see as a threat, and placed the various service commanders in charge of both the military and the state, easing tensions between the relatively junior officers in government and the senior commanders.
The mid-1972 coding sits in this period of intra-NRC realignment and Acheampong's consolidation of control.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
45207161972
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Acheampong consolidated power within the NRC, sidelining the junior officers who had helped him seize control.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. 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
The Jerusalem Post
New York Times
Washington Post, Times Herald
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 →