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Courage Quashigah 1972.
Emmanuel Courage Kobla Quashigah
was born on 9th September 1947 in
Kedzi, the Volta Region of the Gold
Coast. After studying at the Keta
Secondary School, he enrolled in the
Ghana Military Academy in Accra and,
after nine months, was selected for
training at Sandhurst. A member of Intake 49, he was commissioned in 1972 and received the War Studies prize and the Overseas Cane as the best international cadet of his intake.
This early promise continued as Quashigah served in operational, training and staff appointments in Ghana, including as chief instructor at the Jungle Warfare School and as an instructor at the Ghana Military Academy. He also attended the Ranger course at the US Infantry School, where he graduated first, beating 146 Americans. After attending the Canadian Staff College and an operational tour with UN forces in Lebanon, for which he was awarded a commendation, he attended the Ghana Staff College in 1989.
Ghana had been mired in coups since the overthrow of the first president, Kwame Nkrumah, in 1966. In 1979, a junior officer coup, led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, was successful, and Quashigah, a contemporary in age, and the new president were close. His position as commander of the military police gave him a seat on the National Police Council, chaired by the president. However, like many leaders who take power in a coup, Rawlings was paranoid, and in 1989, Quashigah and four others were arrested for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government. As Rawlings had conducted a ‘house cleaning exercise’ when he took power, involving the murder of three former presidents and the ‘disappearance’ of over 300 other Ghanaians, the future looked bleak. However, in the wake of Rawlings winning a democratic election in 1992 and changing his image to ‘father of the nation’, the five were quietly released.
His military career effectively over, Quashigah turned to politics and, in 1998, was elected national organiser of the opposition New Patriotic Party. When the party swept to power in 2001, the new president, John Kufuor, made Quashigah minister of agriculture. Although the opposition attacked him for his inexperience, his
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