Busia�s Overthrow By Acheampong �Totally Unnecessary� � Agyepong

The ousting of Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia some 43 years ago was �totally unnecessary�, General Secretary of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwabena Agyepong has told Morning Starr host Kafui Dey in an interview on Starr 103.5fm Tuesday January 13, 2014 � the anniversary of the coup. �It was totally unnecessary: we were in a democratic dispensation; everything was going on smoothly. �He was not one to trample on the rights of Ghanaians. He was just being realistic with the strength of our currency�he felt that as a country we should be truthful about our economic circumstances and he was taking pragmatic decisions and some didn�t like it and they felt that just devaluing the currency was reducing the purchasing power of the ordinary Ghanaian and the soldiers took advantage of it and launched a coup,� Agyepong said. According to him: �It wasn�t a popular coup. There was no general outpouring into the streets to celebrate his overthrow. Anybody who was in this country will attest to that.� Prof Busia spent only 27 months in Office as Prime Minister in Ghana�s second Republican dispensation under President Edward Akufo-Addo, father of the NPP�s current Flag-bearer Nana Akufo-Addo. The country at the time adopted the Westminster system of governance of which Busia�s Progress Party (PP) � a progeny of the UP tradition, and forebear of the current Dankwa-Busia-Dombo tradition of the current NPP � had the majority in Parliament. While in Office, Busia had half a million Nigerians deported � an action which will later be retaliated by Africa�s most populous country � and also had the local currency, Cedi, devalued by 44 percent in 1971. The Cedi devaluation move incurred the wrath of the Ghanaian public, and served as a crest of wave for the Military, led by Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, to ride on to oust the PP administration while Busia was in Britain for a medical check-up. Prof Busia died from a heart attack in 1978. Eulogising him in his interview with Kafui Dey, Agyepong, a former Flag-bearer-Aspirant of the NPP said the Wenchi-born academic-turned-politician was a �true democrat� and a �true patriot� of Ghana. �He was a man who was a visionary: I mean the things that he espoused have triumphed the world over � the values of democracy, the values of market forces, the values of individual liberties �.� In Agyepong�s view, �many years on�now the whole world, even China, look at Russia, have all begun to embrace policies that Prof Busia espoused� as the best for development of a country. So it just goes to confirm that if we had had the full complement of Busia�s terms of office�[Ghana would have benefitted]�.