Divide et Impera: Civilian Control of the Military in Ghana's Second and Third Republics

Abstract

Anearlier contribution to thisJournaladdressed itself to the question of how Kwame Nkrumah tried to subordinate his military forces to the civil authority of the Convention People's Party during the Ghanaian First Republic, 1960–6.1It was argued that the pattern of objective control inherited from the British colonial authorities was cast aside in favour of an entirely new subjective mechanism: ‘This involved the orchestration of a programme of military diversification in which new security organisations were formed and existing ones split up’.2Thisarticle will continue that theme by examining how civilian politicians attempted to confront the same dilemma in the Second and Third Republics during 1969–72 and 1979–81, respectively.