Newly declassified documents confirm that the UK had a hand in the 1966 coup against Ghana’s first president, pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah.
We spoke to investigative journalist Mohamed El Maazi, who talked us through how London orchestrated a covert propaganda campaign through journals, pamphlets and fabricated groups – all with the aim of destabilising Nkrumah’s leftist government. Their goal was to replace him with a regime that aligned with Western political and economic interests.
Maazi explains how Nkrumah’s efforts to unite Africa and fight against colonialism, apartheid and Western control in Africa angered Britain and the US, leading to an intensified campaign to overthrow him.