Lieutenant General Arnold Quainoo seated at the extreme right with Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso.

Lieutenant General Arnold Quainoo seated at the extreme right with Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso.

Lieutenant General Arnold Quainoo seated at the extreme right with Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso.

Lieutenant General Arnold Quainoo was heavily criticized and accused of setting up Liberian President Samuel Doe, but he fiercely denied these allegations until his death on December 2, 2024.

His controversy stems from the chaotic events of September 9, 1990, at the ECOMOG headquarters in Monrovia. As the first commander of the West African peacekeeping force, Quainoo was at the center of an incident that resulted in Doe’s capture and brutal execution by Prince Johnson’s rebel forces.

ECOMOG peacekeepers disarmed President Doe’s bodyguards upon their arrival at the headquarters but failed to disarm Prince Johnson’s heavily armed rebels when they entered shortly after.

When the firefight broke out, Quainoo reportedly took cover and ordered his peacekeepers not to engage, allowing Johnson’s men to massacre over 80 of Doe’s loyalists and kidnap the wounded president.

General Quainoo, affectionately nicknamed the “Buffalo Soldier” in Ghana, broke his silence regarding the incident in 2014 and consistently maintained his innocence:

He claimed that a specific, unnamed West African country orchestrated the plot to assassinate Doe completely behind his back.

Quainoo argued that Doe was killed by his own pride, stating that the Liberian president paid an unscheduled, highly volatile visit to the headquarters and ignored strict security instructions.

Supporters of Quainoo have long argued that ECOMOG was a newly formed, poorly coordinated force under strict instructions not to engage in active combat, making them ill-equipped to handle the sudden, violent ambush by rebel forces.The fallout from the incident ruined Quainoo’s standing as commander; he was quietly replaced by Nigerian Major General Joshua Dogonyaro shortly after Doe’s assassination.

Despite his denials, the suspicion of complicity or gross negligence followed Quainoo throughout his retirement until he passed away at the age of 85 in Accra.