Chapter 3 responsibility for the mutiny and asked the court martial to release his men. He also maintained that his men were innocent and were unaware of their actions as he had placed them under a hypnotic spell(Opoku-Agyemang, 1979). This act of'selfless courage' and charisma was greeted with cheers from the court room as the people finally felt they now had someone who shared the same sentiments of injustice as they did. More importantly, the people recognized the bravery, determination and boldness of Rawlings – a junior officer – in the face of adversity and persecution by senior military officers. Rawlings' verbalization of the public frustration and fear of reprisals corroborates the idea posited by Crook(1999) who argues that'sometimes for longer periods, large numbers of people possess an intense and shared feeling that their common interests are being ignored by rulers and politicians or addressed too slowly out of respect for traditional or complex legal procedures.' Such was the case of the ordinary people of Ghana as portrayed by Rawlings, for which reason, even though they had protested against the two previous military governments, they were now prepared to once again subject themselves to another military government. While this court martial was in progress, Rawlings was released from jail by fellow soldiers, and successfully staged the coup d'état of 4 June 1979, ushering in the three-month rule of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). The Limann Interregnum After being freed from prison on 4 June 1979, Rawlings echoed the words of Nkrumah by declaring that Ghana'needs a moral 83