Robert Kotei Major General Robert Ebenezer Abossey Kotei ( 1935 – 26 June 1979 ) was a soldier , politician and track and field athlete . He was once the Chief of Defence Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces and also a member of the Supreme Military Council which ruled Ghana between 1975 and 1979 . He was executed in 1979 , following a military coup . He also held the Ghanaian high jump record for many years . Sports . Robert Kotei competed for Ghana at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games held in Cardiff , Wales . He was the only Ghanaian to win a medal at the games . He won the bronze medal in the high jump event with a jump of 6 feet 7 inches ( 2 m ) He won the Men ' s AAA Championships in 1960 . He subsequently set the Ghana High Jump record in London on 16 July 1960 . This record stood for 36 years until 1996 . He also became a member of the Ghana Olympic and Commonwealth Games Committee in 1973 . Career . Military . Robert Kotei ( then a Colonel ) , was the Commander of the First Infantry Brigade of the Ghana army in the early 1970s . He was instrumental in foiling a coup plot to unseat the then ruling National Redemption Council ( NRC ) government in 1973 . He became the Ghana army commander in April 1976 . Two years later , he was appointed the Chief of Defence Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces . He retired from the army in 1979 . Politics . Kotei was appointed commissioner ( minister ) for Information by the NRC military government led by General Acheampong . He also worked as the commissioner for Housing . He became a member of the Supreme Military Council ( SMC ) government formed on 9 October 1975 . This replaced the NRC . His appointment was because he was the incumbent army commander . He became Chief of Defense Staff in 1978 , following the palace coup that replaced General Acheampong with Lt . General Fred Akuffo . Execution . On 4 June 1979 , the SMC was overthrown by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council ( AFRC ) led by Flt . Lt . Jerry Rawlings . Following the bloody coup , Kotei surrendered himself to the authorities at the Achimota Police Station in response to requests that previous political office holders report . Some soldiers apparently " later went to the Police Station and brutalised him when they got to know he was there " . His assets were also confiscated to the state . After an investigation that was apparently incomplete and a trial held in camera , Kotei was sentenced to death . It is alleged however that Kotei and his colleagues were probably never tried . On 26 June 1979 , Kotei and five other senior army officers , including two former heads of state , Lt . Gen . Fred Akuffo and Lt . Gen . Akwasi Afrifa , were executed by firing squad . Along with the other officers , he was unceremoniously buried at the Nsawam Prisons Cemetery in Adoagyiri , near Nsawam in the Eastern Region . He left behind nine children , including a two year old . Reburial . All eight senior military officers executed in June 1979 were exhumed and their bodies released to their respective families for reburial in 2001 . On 27 December 2001 , two of the eight , Major General Kotei and Air - Vice Marshall Boakye were buried with full military honours at the Osu Military Cemetery in Accra .