He is known to be an astute politician and football administrator but not many know that this man who is one of the founding fathers of the New Patriotic Party once was a military man.
His time in the military, he said, was however cut short because of a plan he hatched against the government.
Dr Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, in an interview with Muftawu Nabila Abdulai on Prime Take said he and four others, including one civilian were not in favour of the level of power General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong wielded and therefore wanted him out at all cost.
“When I got into the military, by then this country was so political. Busia had been thrown out, Gen. Acheampong was in charge. It was the military but some of us had different sorts of approaches to certain things. I asked myself ‘the role of the military is not to rule civilians, that’s not the role’ because I read a book by one Gen Alexandra… and he had sort of specified clearly the role of the soldier.”
Their plan was however leaked to the government and that marked the end of his military career.
“I was arrested because I was planning with others to overthrow the government. One of the boys went and reported to the MI and he was asked to keep on talking to us, attending meetings with us. He was later made mayor of Accra but he died miserably,” he recounted.
While in prison, Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe said they were brought documents relieving them of their duties as military officers to sign.
“The military, I was sacked. You attempted a coup to remove the head of state, you didn’t succeed there’s no way you can come back to the armed forces… They brought the papers there and we all signed that we’re no more soldiers, they brought it to the prisons.”
All these happened after Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe had served in the military for just three years and was the rank of a Captain.
They were left in prison until Acheampong was removed and upon his release, Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe, who was professionally a doctor before entering the military, left the country to practice medicine.
“After I was released from detention, I left the country for about four, five years because I didn’t want to get involved in anything at all. I left to go and practice my profession because things were in a state of confusion.”
DAG/KPE
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