Opting Out

Bosses, not problems, change

The country that trail-blazed black African decolonization 21 years ago has since had an unhappy political record. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's Osagyefo or Redeemer, was deposed by a 1966 military coup because his grandiose economic mismanagement had hobbled the nation with debt at the same time that the world cocoa market slumped. The next civilian government lasted only three years before Prime Minister Kofi Busia was ousted by the army. Last week General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, 46, who took over in 1972, met a similar fate. Acheampong suddenly resigned from the army and as chairman of the ruling Supreme Military Council, apparently the victim of an office coup.

Acheampong was succeeded by Sandhurst-educated Lieut. General Frederick W. K. Akuffo, 41, his second in command. Ghanaians wondered just what effect the change would have on the return to civilian government by next July that Acheampong had promised. Acheampong had called for a nonparty "union government" in which military officers would be included as advisers; Ghana's politically active professional class criticized "unigov" as a disguise for continued military rule. After they accused Acheampong of cheating on a unigov referendum, over 100 opponents were jailed.

Akuffo's first move last week was to free a prominent dozen of the prisoners. Observers applauded, but waited to see how the new leader would handle the problem that has now toppled three governments: galloping inflation, which runs over 100% a year and puts a basic meal of yam and milk beyond a laborer's average daily wage--about $3.50.

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