How African students rescued Nkrumah’s bodyguard in Moscow after the 1966 coup

Major Agbeko Sedziafa (rtd), former head of security to Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, has shared the difficult experience a team he led faced in Moscow, Russia, following the 1966 coup d’état.

In a recent interview with veteran broadcaster Kafui Dey, Major Sedziafa explained how he and his team were treated after travelling to Moscow to arrange a safe location for Nkrumah after the coup.

According to him, Ghana’s ambassador to Russia at the time, who had been appointed by Nkrumah, rejected them completely. He said the ambassador turned his back on them, ordered them out of the embassy, and left them exposed to the harsh cold weather in Russia.

“When we got to Moscow… they had removed every picture or image of Nkrumah from the Ghana embassy, to our surprise. We were surprised from the beginning, but the ambassador wanted to lure us… The reason I say we were surprised was that we didn’t know what really the ambassador was going to tell us. Then he said, ‘young men, your head of state, or your Nkrumah, was overthrown;’ and in that, he wanted us to denounce Nkrumah, and then he would arrange for a passage for us to come to Ghana.

“Then I told him that so far as I’m the leader of the group, we are not going to denounce Nkrumah in order for him to arrange for us to come to Ghana. We had a mission, and the mission was that we were going to prepare the ground for Nkrumah to come. We didn’t mention where we were going,” he narrated.

He further stated that they were later expelled from the Ghana embassy during winter.

“So, to our surprise, we were sacked from the Ghana embassy. You can imagine, it was February, and it was snowing in Moscow… the cold was no joke. The gates were locked behind us and there was no way back.”

Major Sedziafa said they were eventually helped by African students living in Moscow at the time.

With the assistance of the students, he said they were able to contact Guinea’s ambassador to Russia, who then made arrangements for them to travel to Guinea.

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“It was African students in Moscow who heard of our plight and came to our rescue… They were the people who took us in before we narrated our plan to them that we were going to Guinea, because we couldn’t have told the ambassador where we were going.

“They took us to the Guinean ambassador’s residence. So, it was the Guinean ambassador who arranged a passage for us to go to Guinea,” he said…CONTINUE MORE READING>>>