Kojo Tsikata

Tsikata was born in 1936.[7] He attended the Achimota School for his secondary education. One of his student colleagues was Obed Asamoah who later became the longest serving Minister for Foreign Affairs in Ghana. While there, he was influenced by a recruitment drive to join the Ghana Army after completing his secondary education. He was sent to England where he attended the officer cadet course at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.[8]

Tsikata was sent to the Congo with Major General Ankrah as part of a Ghanaian military contingent with orders from Kwame Nkrumah to protect the Pan-Africanist and anti-neocolonialist Patrice Lumumba, who was the Prime Minister. He later visited Conakry, Guinea, to visit Nkrumah. He was arrested, detained, and put on death row as a suspect of an assassination plot against Nkrumah on his arrival.[9]

Samora Machel, a freedom fighter, intervened to pardon him. Samora travelled with him to Mozambique. He later arrived in Angola in 1964 to join MPLA fighters and internationalist fighters from Cuba.[9][10]

He was appointed in 1982 under the Jerry Rawlings administration.[11] He had been in charge of national security since 1982 and later joined the Rawlings administration on 21 January 1995. He was a member of the council of state and a captain of the Ghana Armed Forces.[6] He also served as a member of the Council of State of Ghana.[12] In 1995, he was asked to join a negotiating team with Mohamed Ibn Chambas who was the then Deputy Foreign Minister, and Brigadier General Agyemfra, accompanied by Harry Mouzillas from the Ghana News Agency as a journalist to cover the events. They travelled to join James Victor Gbeho, the Resident Representative of then Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings and Mr. Ate Allotey, a diplomat.[13][14]

He rejected a national award to be conferred on him in the category of the Companion of the Order of the Volta by President Kuffour. He was listed as one of the six government officials under the NDC regime to receive the award.[13][15]

He was appointed by Gaddafi to a senior advisory position in charge of the Al Mathaba central committee, a support centre for the liberation movement and anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist organisations.[9]

During 1985 while he was Head of National Security, a United States spy ring organised by the CIA to help overthrow the PNDC government was disrupted in what became known as the Sharon Scranage espionage scandal. This was done using Michael Soussoudis, a Ghanaian national resident in the United States to induce Sharon Scranage, a United States citizen working at their embassy in Accra at the time to pass on the names of Ghanaians working for the CIA according to information declassified in 2011.[16]

A retired supreme court judge, Justice G. E. K. Aikins, intimated that Captain Tsikata was implicated in the kidnapping and murder of three high court judges and a retired army officer on 30 June 1983 during the PNDC regime and was never tried. Among the suspects were Captain Kojo Tsikata and Sergeant Aloga Akata-Pore, both key members of the then PNDC.[3] Ghanaians brought Tsikata under scrutiny, but during the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) hearing he denied being involved with the killing of the judges.[17][18] The Special Investigation Board (SIB) stated unequivocally that Kojo Tsikata was the mastermind behind the abduction and killing of the three high court judges and the retired army officer. One reason was that, before the execution of the sole witness, he withdrew his accusation against Captain Tsikata.[4] Joachim Amartey Quaye, one of the architects of the murderous incident, was imprisoned and some soldiers, Tekpor, Dzandzu, and Helki, were all found guilty of murder, sentenced to death, and executed by firing squad.[19][17] One of the convicted, Amedeka, escaped prison and has not been seen since.[17]

Captain Kojo Tsikata received one of Angola's highest honours, known as Carlos Silva among Angolan fighters, for his role in the struggle for national independence.[10]

Tsikata was a holder of the Solidarity Award and of the Order of "Carlos Manuel de Céspedes", conferred by the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba.[20]

In September 2018 he was honoured with an award by the Socialist Forum of Ghana at the Pan African Conference which took place at the University of Education, Winneba.[21]