Renowned Ghanaian media personality, Kwaku Sintim-Misa, fondly called KSM, has asked that people at the helm of affairs in Ghana remove the name of Lieutenant-General Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka from Ghana’s International Airport.
According to him, while his opinion might anger a lot of people, he feels that the naming of Ghana’s premium airport after the late coup leader is just a disgrace to the country.
This request of KSM was made via a tweet he made on the very first day of 2023.
The full tweet reads: ‘AT THE RISK OF ANGERING MANY, my wish is to see the name of Kotoka REMOVED from the Airport. It’s a DISGRACE to our History. HAPPY NEW YEAR’
AT THE RISK OF ANGERING MANY, my wish is to see the name of Kotoka REMOVED from the Airport. It's a DISGRACE to our History. HAPPY NEW YEAR
— Kwaku Sintim-Misa (@KSM_Kwaku_Misa) January 1, 2023
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For purposes of history, the late Lieutenant-General Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka was born on September 26, 1926. He was a member of the National Liberation Council which came to power through a military coup d’état on 24th February 1966. The group led the overthrow of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of the Republic.
The existing airport, Kotoka International Airport, was originally a military airport used by the British Royal Air Force during World War II in 1946.
The facility was handed over to civilian authorities after a successful pullout by the military. In response to globalization and the growing demand for air travel at the time, a development project was launched to reconfigure the structure into a terminal building in 1956.
The completion of the project set the stage for Ghana Airways to use the airport as its base in 1958.
The airport was originally designed and commissioned to accommodate a maximum of five hundred thousand (500,000) passengers annually. In 1969, the Accra International Airport was renamed Kotoka International Airport in memory of the late Lt. General E.K. Kotoka.
