Chapter 3 and 31 December 1981-8 January 2001). Because of the particular roles and contributions of these three politicians, one of whom won independence for Ghana and was also democratically elected, but progressively turning dictatorial, and two military leaders who came to power through coups d'état, this paper discusses populism within the framework of Ghana's experience, particularly under these three political leaders. Against this background, the paper also explores the impact of such populist approaches to politics on the Fourth Republic through to 2012. While Kwame Nkrumah was voted the African of the Century in a British Broadcasting Corporation poll in 2000 and his birthday has been declared and celebrated as a continent-wide event by the African Union(AU), Nkrumah's political legacy has only recently been resuscitated and rehabilitated in Ghana and he enjoys virtually unassailable national status in the country. While Nkrumah is perceived as the model of African leadership(at least in the period immediately preceding Ghana's independence), the place and position of Kutu Acheampong, on the other hand, in Ghanaian history is for the time being uncertain. Some historians and political observers, however, have concluded in the interim that his period at the helm of Ghana's affairs nevertheless embodied all that was not so admirable about African leadership. More interestingly, even though both Kutu Acheampong and Jerry Rawlings were military coup leaders, Rawlings eventually executed Acheampong and seven others for their corrupt and violent rule. Rawlings, on the other hand, is not so easy to pigeonhole and defies easy classification as he straddles both the good and the bad notions of populism discussed in the paper. Though the nature of his political legacy has not yet been decided, it is nevertheless a useful exercise to analyze the populist 67