Social activist group Democracy Hub, in partnership with the Convention People’s Party (CPP), has filed a lawsuit at the Supreme Court seeking the removal of Kotoka’s name from Accra International Airport.
The group argues that honoring Lieutenant-General Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka, a key figure in Ghana’s first coup d’état in 1966, contradicts the country’s democratic principles. They contend that keeping his name on a major national landmark is an endorsement of unconstitutional rule.
“For 59 years, Ghana has lived with the contradiction of denouncing coups while continuing to honour one of the architects of the first military overthrow of an elected government,” Democracy Hub and the CPP stated.
The plaintiffs are challenging the legal basis of the General Kotoka Trust Decree, 1969 (NLCD 339), which sanctioned the airport’s renaming. They insist that Ghana must take concrete steps to reject military interventions, in line with the 1992 Constitution’s commitment to democratic governance.
The lawsuit is backed by legal experts from Merton & Everett LLP, following what the group describes as extensive legal and archival research.
Democracy Hub has called on Ghanaians, civil society organizations, and youth activists to support the case, framing it as a national reckoning with Ghana’s past and a reaffirmation of its democratic values.
