An Agreement with President Olympio
Lome’s Police Commissar K. Dekon was appointed his (Gbedemah) adviser. The Ghanaian exiles were given lodging in Lome and also money. Gbedemah’s cousin Adjavon started forging false passports for terrorists, couriers, messengers and other participants of the plot. The first intimidation operation ” was carried out on January 8, 1963 when ” Mills-37 ” hand- grenades were thrown into the crowd at a stadium in Accra.
This ended in killing 55 residents of Accra. Gbedemah transferred 50,000 Ghanaian pounds to his personal account in a Swiss bank. This business proved more profitable than the sale of eggs. For a dozen eggs he received 7 or 8 shillings while for each killed Ghanaian the returns were 1,000 pounds per head and no competition.
The next act of “intimidation” was to be meted out in late January, this time at one of the mass meetings of children in Accra. The terrorists even tried to bribe several of the children promising to pay them 200 pounds each. They thought that a bomb thrown by a child would have an especially terrible psychological effect. However, this provocation was not destined to occur. And not only because there was no child to be found in Accra who would agree to kill his chums for money.
On January 13, Togo’s President Silvanus Olympio was shot dead in Lome when entering the American Embassy. The situation had changed for the worse for the conspirators.
The Situation Aggravates
Gbedemah took the change of leadership in Togo very painfully since he lost the support of Olympio and his closest associates who fled abroad. The first reaction of Gbedemah and Busia following the events of January 13 was to accuse Nkrumah of organising the coup d’état in Togo. They thought that because by that time Olympio’s participation in the anti-Nkrumah plot had been known – everyone would believe that.
With this aim in view Gbedemah and Busia wrote hundreds of leaflets and anonymous letters containing false arguments which allegedly exposed Nkrumah as an accomplice to the Togo coup d’etat. Both of them made numerous statements to the press to that effect. However, they were so far from the truth that even Washington and London told them to forget about this foolish scheme although both those capitals secretly bemoaned the assassinated President.
The new Togo authorities did not support Gbedemah’s and Busia’s initiative, and the conspirators were asked to behave in a more quiet manner. At a meeting in Lome in early March, 1963 it was decided that due to the emerging difficulties the headquarters of the plotters should be trans- ferred to Lagos and that a terrorist camp be set up in the region of Jebba.
Relations with Nicholas Grunitsky and the French had so deteriorated that Gbedemah was forced not only to leave his headquarters in Lome but also the scat of his amorous exploits in Nice. At the end of July, the 35-year old beauty Dossea Kissey left Cote d’Azur without informing her French admirers of her new whereabouts. But even if she had left her address in Lagos where she was invited by Gbedemah, she could not have been found there. As a matter of fact on her way from France to Nigeria she was intercepted by two men who spoke with a very strong American accent and, allegedly on Gbedemah’s request put her on a different plane. That was how Kissey quite unexpectedly for herself landed in Liberia. It later transpired that Gbedemah knew nothing about this.
The kidnapping was explained by the following circumstances. The CIA agents evidently got wind of Gbedemah’s ties with the British. Whatever it was, the CIA chief, McCone, was afraid that its ‘ control over the activities of the conspirators would considerably slacken in Lagos. So McCone’s agents playing on the tender affection of Gbedemah for Kissey moved her to Liberia so that the lovers’ meetings would alternate with conversations on more prosaic topics.
Apparently it was believed that Gbedemah would eventually go to Monrovia, especially because in the neighbouring Abidjan a working committee set up by the Americans started its activities the main purpose of which was to prepare terroristic acts. It was another centre of subversive actions against Ghana. It was more convenient to operate off the territory of the Ivory Coast, which has a common border with Ghana, than from Lagos.
Looking for an Assassin
The second half of 1963 proved an especially difficult time for Gbedemah. He was posed an extremely complicated task: to find an assassin from among Nkrumah’s personal guard or plant one there. The problem was all the more difficult because the recent failures of the conspirators put a great number of his agents out of circulation. There were very few of them left in Ghana and those who were active were not in the immediate Nkrumah retinue.
To look for terrorists abroad and recruit them from among the exiles or aliens was becoming more and more difficult, also because many of them knew Gbedemah’s habit of paying in false currency or forgetting to pay at all. During those days Gbedemah could be seen intermittently at the aerodromes in Lagos, London and Monrovia. The BOAC listed Gbedemah as their permanent client and suggested that he make a statement for the press about the company’s smooth operations. But least of all did Gbedemah think of advertising: he was frantically looking for an assassin.
