Revisiting the Unigov Referendum

It is exactly 30 years ago, when one of the major farces in our 54 years of independence as an independent nation was played out on the political minefield of this republic. On March 30, 1978, a referendum was conducted throughout the country, with the intended aim of sampling public opinion on whether or not the concept of Union Government was acceptable to the general populace.

For the uninitiated, the Union Government was conceived by the military oligarchy, headed by the late Gen. Kutu Acheampong, to stem the tide of agitations for the military to disengage itself from the political direction of this nation, and return to the barracks.

As agitations reached a crescendo, Gen. Acheampong addressed the nation in a radio and television broadcast, and spelt out a new concept of governance, in which the military, police, and the general civil population were required to form a government, devoid of partisan political interests.

Obviously, it was an attempt to buy time for the military head of state and his cronies. In the course of the campaign, all state institutions were marshaled to campaign for the concept. A few dedicated Ghanaians, led by the late General Akwasi Amankwa Afrifa, late Komla Agbeli Gbedema, late Dr. Kwame Safo Adu, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and many others, stood against the military at the time, and in spite of state terrorism directed against these 'refusniks', rallied the general population to kick the idea to touch.

Like those whose used state resources to suppress dissent and created the culture of silence during the heady days of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), and which in the words of then Chairman Rawlings, created the 'culture of silence,' the perpetrators of the concept employed intimidating powers of the military and the police to try and cow down the citizenry to buy into the concept.

The Chronicle recalls with nostalgia, the heroic deeds of the late Mr. Justice Isaac Kobina Abban, who, as the Electoral Commissioner, refused to announce cooked figures from the military oligarchy, and instead scaled the walls of the Electoral Commission and went into hiding.

When the military oligarchy declared their own results, other than the verdict of the people, agitations from the various campuses of the then three universities, and intermittent strike actions by professional bodies, forced the palace coup of October 1978, and stopped the Union Government concept.

The Chronicle is proud to recall that the agitations of ordinary Ghanaians against oppression and misuse of power, led to the birth of the Third Republican administration of ex-President Hilla Limann.

The intervention of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) in June 1979 did not alter the process much. It might have contributed in preparing the way for the brutal suppression of the rights of the Ghanaian, orchestrated by the PNDC, led by Jerry John Rawlings, who was also named Chairman, when junior officers and the other ranks mutinied in the events leading to the June 4 Uprising of 1979.

Thirty-three years after the infamous referendum, The Chronicle invites Ghanaians to reflect on the events that led to the many interventions in national politics by the military. We hope and pray that the average Ghanaian would resolve never to allow this nation to descend into the sordid past, when the liberty of the individual was hijacked by dawn broadcasters, who only succeed in amassing wealth in the name of liberating the people.

March 30… Eye Blue oo. Blue. Unigov, Yegya Mu!