Lt Gen Joshua Mahamadu Hamidu (rtd)
Lt Gen Joshua Mahamadu Hamidu (rtd) has passed on at the age of 84, which sad incident occurred in the evening of last Monday at the 37 Military Hospital.
The late General Hamidu is credited with a chequered military career spanning from his early days as a Signals Officer, Head of Defence Intelligence and the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS). He was also a member of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) and served as Ghana’s envoy to Nigeria and Zambia at different times, having also chaired the board of the Narcotics Control Board.
Gen Hamidu was a cadet mate of top Nigerian Generals such as Gen Olusegun Obasanjo, and General Theophilus Danjuma among others, all of them products of the then Regular Officer Training School (ROTS), Teshie, now the Ghana Military Academy where they underwent their initial military training before leaving for the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst in England.
The deceased, a Dagbon royal, was born in Yendi in 1936, and played an important role during the heady days in the history of the military in the late 70s.
General Hamidu has attracted a lot of wonderful tributes, one of them from Lepuwura Alhaji Nurudeen Jawula, a retired Chief Director, who told DAILY GUIDE “Gen Hamidu was the son of Sunson Na when I served as a young administrator in Yendi. The only picture he had of his father was the one I took with him. He never forgot that one. Sad moment. I visited him six months ago and we had a long chat. Gen Hamidu was a member of the royal family of Dagbon, being the son of Sunson Na Hamidu, a prominent member of the Advisory Council of the Ya Na. He told me that he was born a Muslim as Mahamadu but converted to Islam while in Tamale Secondary School which he entered in 1951, the second batch of students to start Tamasco. He told me that he worked hard in the intelligence of the military during the Nkrumah regime. He reported on the insurrection that eventually overthrew the Nkrumah regime but his superiors at the time put the report away only to post him for external duties when the coup succeeded. He handled me as a junior brother because he was classmate and close friend to my late brother at Tamasco.”
There are speculations that he has a manuscript detailing a lot about the history of the military’s evolution. Should this be true and the manuscript published, his trove of institutional memory would definitely enrich the knowledge of students of Ghana’s military and political history.
His pivotal role in the establishment of the Command and Staff College and his subsequent contribution to its growth is manifested in a hall named after him at the college, Hamidu Hall.
At the time of composing this story, funeral arrangements were not available.
President Akufo-Addo was one of the early sympathisers to visit the family home of the celebrated General at his Dimples, Dzorwulu residence in Accra. He expressed his condolences to the bereaved family during the visit.
By A.R. Gomda