Insurgency (feb 20, 1957 – mar 6, 1957)

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A few days after Independence, the Minister of the Interior, Ako Adjei, released a statement that appeared in major Ghanaian newspapers on 11 and 12 March.148 The statement claimed that, between 15 and 20 February, the government had received information about two camps where opponents of integration were being trained for the disruption of Independence celebrations. On the basis of this information, the Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Charles Arden-Clarke, signed two Peace Preservation Orders, requiring the inhabitants of Alavanyo and Hodzo to give up all weapons and ammunition except those that were covered by a special licence. On 1 March, police found evidence that telephone wires had been cut, and the two camps, with small cachés of weapons and evidence of recent occupation, were discovered. Two hundred extra police were sent to the area, whilst military companies were stationed at Ho, Hohoe, and Kpandu in order to act as ‘reserve security forces’.
According to the Minister of the Interior, on 3 March, sixteen individuals were arrested for refusing to give up their weapons. On 4 March, sixty people travelled by lorry to Kpandu, where they tore down Independence decorations and broke the windows of the post office. A riot ensued in which sixty-nine people were arrested. On the same day, 150 people demonstrated outside the office of the Government Agent, Jasikan, and a riot ensued when they were attacked by local advocates of integration. In this riot, eight were arrested, four were injured (one of whom died in hospital), and one person was killed outright. On 5 March, ‘minor incidents’ occurred in ‘many scattered localities’ and the total
number of arrests now reached eighty. On 6 March, a major incident occurred at Kpandu-Konda. A platoon of police reserves, leaving the town by lorry, was surrounded and fired upon. Reinforcements of police arrived, and in the ensuing riot, three reunificationists were killed and six were wounded. Supporters of reunification, on the other hand, remembered the sequence of events rather differently, emphasising the extent to which they were provoked, harassed, and attacked by members of the army and police force.149

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