A lot of things happened after the 1966 coup that saw the overthrow of Dr Kwame Nkrumah that are not usually heard of, and one of such stories is that of Boye Moses, a senior security officer who worked closely with Ghana’s first president.
His loyalty to Nkrumah cost him dearly, leading him from a secret mission in the country to public humiliation in a cage on the streets of Accra.
Before the coup, Boye Moses was one of the top men in Nkrumah’s security team.
He was part of the group that travelled with Nkrumah to Hanoi in 1966 when soldiers took over the government back in Ghana.
Nkrumah did not return to Ghana after the coup but went to Conakry, Guinea, on the invitation of his friend, President Sekou Touré. Boye chose to stay with him there instead of going back home, a decision that is believed to have made him a target for Ghana’s new military government.
While in exile, Nkrumah kept working to get back into power, and He sent Boye Moses on intelligence-gathering errands along the West Coast of Africa, a risky, secret work.
His movements on the coast were discovered by Ghanaian intelligence agencies and due to the close ties that Ghana’s government had built with neighbouring Dahomey (now Benin) and Nigeria it was easy to track him down.
It is reported that in an operation involving three different services, Boye Moses was seized and smuggled back into Ghana.
Paraded Through Accra In A Cage
The punishment he received upon his return to Ghana is said to have been both public and humiliating.
The former top security man was paraded in a cage through the streets of Accra before being locked up, an action that was aimed at sending a message to anyone still loyal to Nkrumah that even his most trusted men were not safe.
Not much else is known about Boye Moses. What happened to him after his arrest, how long he stayed in prison, and how his life ended are not recorded in the sources available today. His story survives only in small mentions within larger accounts of Nkrumah’s life, remembered today by only a few.
Kwame Nkrumah’s head of security, Major Agbeko Sedziafa (rtd) recalled Boye Moses’ story in an interview with Kafui Dey earlier this year.
