Lieutenant General Arnold Quainoo
Former Ghanaian military officer, Lieutenant General Arnold Quainoo has died at the 37 military hospital on Monday, December 2, 2024 in Accra.
He served as the Chief of Defence Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces from August 1983 to September 1989.
Lieutenant General Arnold Quainoo who took over from the late Flight Lieutenant J. J. Rawlings handed over to Lieutenant General Winston Mensa-Wood.
Also known as “Buffalo Soldier”, he was the first commander of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) that intervened to end the Liberian civil war.
He also served as Army Commander, in 1979 following the coup-d’état by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), which overthrew the Supreme Military Council (SMC).
He was however replaced when the Limann government was elected in 1979 but was re-appointed as Chief of Army Staff following the coup by the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) and subsequently as commanding officer at the Ghana Armed Forces.