General Quainoo Gone? – Oh!!!
Reader, this world is not our home. We are all just passing through. As days grow into weeks, months and years we pass through several theatres of life, meeting all manner of persons, some for good, others for ill.
The year was 1979. I had just returned from military training to become a subaltern – from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, UK. I was posted to Michel Camp, as Platoon Commander in 1st Battalion of Infantry.
Just one week after reporting for duty in the unit, news broke out that my two close friends, while a student leader at Legon University – Major Boakye-Djan and Flt Lt Jerry Rawlings had staged a military coup – June 4.
Those were chaotic days in Ghana. Soldiers, most of them other ranks, without official sanction, used to carry out private revolutionary operations, brutalising civilians. IBN Tema in those days was in charge of Eastern Region, and a special price control operation took place in Suhum. One soldier went haywire, did some indiscriminate firing, and the Unit Commander, then Captain Charles Okae set up a Board to investigate the incident.
I was made secretary to the Board and I wrote the Report.
Not long after I was sent to the Ghana Military Academy as the Demonstration Company Commander, and, reader, I did raw soldiering at the Academy, commanding soldiers from A Coy Tema doing demonstration duties to cadets under training.
One afternoon I entered the Officers Mess with my uniform full of sweat from field exercise for the cadets, and just as I ordered one bottle Guinness, some Captain tapped my shoulders.
“Are you Lieutenant Effah-Dartey?”
“Yes Sir.”
“You are to report at 0700hrs tomorrow morning at Army Headquarters for Army Commander’s Interview.”
Reader, that night, I did not sleep. Army Commander’s Interview? Why me? What have I done? But who at all is the Army Commander – oh- that Brigadier who was commandant at the Military Academy when I was a cadet – that guy is a terror. Rumour had it that he could do one thousand arm pressing at a go, my God I am enjoying life as military academy demonstration company commander – what the hell is this?
Next morning a chauffeur driven military saloon car pulled up at the officer’s mess, picked me up straight to Army Headquarters, then based at Flagstaff House, now completely rebuilt as Jubilee House.
“So, you were the secretary who wrote that Board Report of the incident at Suhum? I want you to be my ADC – start work right now………….”
I went to Michel Camp and parked all my things and came to live with the Army Commander in the ADC quarters opposite Accra Girls Secondary School. It was and remains the most exciting happiest days in my life – following my boss, the Army Commander, sitting in front of his Command Car, moving from place to place- all the military units, with me more as a personal secretary than glorified bodyguard, writing memos upon memos – oh General Quainoo!!!
One weekend we left Accra for Kumasi and Sunyani, visiting the battalions there. In those days the Army Commander doubled as the Border Guards Commander, so we went over to Dormaa Ahenkro to visit border guards stationed there. We went over to the Ivory Coast border, did a little walk, and came back to Dormaa for dinner.
It was a Sunday afternoon, around 5pm. As usual, Commander was seated at the head of the dining table, with me next to him, and staff officers and border guards, officers – we were about 20 in all, eating.
Then Lieutenant Gbevlo Lartey, who later became security capo for NDC and was my senior at the Military Academy came to tap my shoulder – “Effah, come for some two-man.”
I got up and followed him, to a verandah outside.
“Effah, it has just been announced on the radio that President Limann has retired your boss. He is no more the Army Commander. Brigadier Amoa has been appointed to replace him….”
Oh! Human nature!! Apparently, everybody had heard the news, but nobody wanted to tell us. When Commander finally heard it strangely, he broke out laughing: “Is that why my ADC was going up and down?
We cut short on duty tour and drove all night from Dormaa Ahenkro to Accra – that ended my 10 weeks service as ADC to the Army Commander, Back to Batan Michel Camp, later Lebanon, later blah blah……
My boss was a Brigadier, and me, black sheep, small boy officer. Our paths did not cross again until 2005 when suddenly he came to my office as Deputy Minister of Interior on some mundane issue – that was the last time I saw him.
Tuesday, December 2, 2024 – my senior at the office, Lawyer Ofori asked me – “Have you heard that Quainoo is gone?” all I could do was to open my mouth and scream: “Oh!!!!!
Reader, this world is not our home. We are all just passing through. As days grow into weeks, months and years we pass through several theatres of life, meeting all manner of persons, some for good, others for ill.
BY HIS FORMER ADC CAPTAIN (RETIRED) NKRABEAH EFFAH-DARTEY GH/1828
