International Journal of African Historical Studies Vol. 50, No. 2 (2017) 225 Copyright © 2017 by the Board of Trustees of Boston University “The Strange Case of Major Awhaitey”: Conspiracy, Testimonial Evidence, and Narratives of Nation in Ghana’s Postcolonial Democracy * By Jeffrey S. Ahlman Smith College (jahlman@smith.edu) Introduction In a 19 December 1958 conversation with Lieutenant E.R. Amenyah, Ghanaian army major Benjamin Awhaitey purportedly recounted how, on the previous afternoon, two of Ghana’s most prominent members of parliament—R.R. Amponsah and Modesto Apaloo— had visited him at his home. There, Amponsah and Apaloo allegedly advised the Ghanaian major of their plot to assassinate the country’s prime minister, Kwame Nkrumah, and overthrow Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP) government. According to Amenyah, Amponsah and Apaloo specifically sought Awhaitey’s assistance in recruiting several non-commissioned officers (NCOs) to help stage a coup on 20 December, as the Ghanaian prime minister prepared to leave for India. 1 At the time, serving as the commandant of the army’s sprawling headquarters in Accra, Awhaitey appeared to be an ideal candidate to bring into the conspiracy. However, shortly after his discussion with Amenyah, Ghanaian authorities apprehended the major and arrested the two MPs. As Ghana’s first attorney general, Geoffrey Bing, noted in his 1968 memoir, the case of Benjamin Awhaitey is a “strange” one. 2 There are few facts in the case that have gone undisputed, including in some scenarios proposed during the case the identities of nearly all of the case’s central actors. Awhaitey himself offered several different iterations * This article benefited from the generous and pointed comments of the 2015–2016 Smith College History Department Writing Group, which, at the time, included Reem Bailony, Josh Birk, Sergey Glebov, Sarah Hines, and Liz Pryor. A shortened version of the article was also presented in April 2017 as part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s African Studies Program’s “Africa at Noon” lecture series. Finally, I also want to thank the article’s two anonymous reviewers, both of whom offered advice and comments that strengthened the final product. 1 Statement of Emmanuel Robert Amenyah to Ghana Army, 2 and 3 January 1959, appendix A to Ghana, Proceedings and Report of the Commission Appointed to Enquire into Matters Disclosed at the Trial of Captain Benjamin Awhaitey before a Court-Martial and the Surrounding Circumstances with the Minutes of Evidence Taken before the Commission (January–March 1959) (Accra: Government Printer, 1959), i. (Hereafter, Ghana, Proceedings). 2 Geoffrey Bing, Reap the Whirlwind: An Account of Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana from 1950 to 1966 (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1968), 239. In his memoir, Bing titled his chapter on the Awhaitey affair “The Strange Case of Major Awhaitey” to which the title of this article references.