Auction Catalogue

28 September 2005

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Important British and World Coins

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

Download Images

Lot

№ 459

.

28 September 2005

Hammer Price:
£55

Ghana, National Redemption Council, General Ignatius Acheampong, a polished working obv. die for a portrait coinage [1972-5], military bust three-quarters left, col· i k· acheampong · chairman of the n·r·c· ghana around, beaded border, 30mm. Extremely fine, as made (£50-70)

Provenance:
DNW Auction 52, 28-9 November 2001, lot 546.

Ignatius Kutu Acheampong (1931-79), soldier and political leader from Kumasi, served with the British army in Germany in the mid 1950s and, after attending staff college at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, became commanding officer of the 5th and 6th Bn, Ghana contingent, on the UN Belgian Congo peacekeeping force. In 1971 he was appointed commander of Ghana’s 1st Infantry Brigade. Under the pretext of Kofi Busia’s austerity budget later that year and the devaluation of the cedi, Ghana’s monetary unit, by 44%, Acheampong staged a military coup on 13 January 1972 which overthrew Busia’s government. Acheampong set himself up as head of state and established the National Redemption Council to rule the country, with himself as chairman. Initially popular within Ghana because he repudiated some of Ghana’s foreign debts with the slogan ‘yentua’ (we won’t pay), he preached self-sufficiency, but corruption and inflation led to outbreaks of discontent which he suppressed. His NRC militarised Ghanaian society but his downfall began with the transformation of the NRC into the Supreme Military Council in 1975. Violent student demonstrations against Acheampong’s proposals for a union government led to a referendum in 1978 that was widely regarded as being rigged and in July of that year he was ousted from power and placed under house arrest. On 16 June 1979 he was executed by firing squad after a short trial by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, which had seized power in another coup