The Ghana Armed Forces are the Army, Navy, and Air Force. It is supervised by the Ministry of Defence (Ghana). With around 7,000 personnel serving in the Ghanian military, Ghana has the lowest ratio of active troops per thousand citizens in the world, standing at 0.33.^{[citation needed]} The Army is larger than the Air Force and the Navy.

Ghana's supreme military commander is the President of The Republic. The day-to-day running of the armed forces is managed by the Ministry of Defence and the Chief of Defence Staff. The Ministry of Defence and Central Defence Headquarters are both located in Accra. Accra, in the British colony of the Gold Coast, was also the location of the British Army’s Headquarters West Africa Command which remained there until its disbandment in 1956.

The Ghanaian military often has to make do with poorly-serviced weaponry and equipment due to lack of maintenance training and capability.^{[citation needed]} As a result, maintenance tasks are often contracted to U.N. and other foreign military advisors and technicians.^{[citation needed]}

Ghana ⁱ/ˈɡɑːnə/ is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south. The word Ghana means "Warrior King" and is derived from the ancient Ghana Empire.

Ghana was inhabited in pre-colonial times by a number of ancient predominantly Akan kingdoms, including the inland Ashanti Empire, the Akwamu, the Akyem, the Bonoman, the Denkyira, and the Fante among others. Non-Akan states created by the Ga also existed as did states by the Dagomba. Prior to contact with Europeans trade between the Akan and various African states flourished due to Akan's gold wealth. Trade with European states began after contact with the Portuguese in the 15th century, and the British established the Gold Coast Crown colony in 1874 over parts but not all of the country.

The Gold Coast achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1957, becoming the First sub-Saharan African nation to do so from European Colonialism. The name Ghana was chosen for the new nation to reflect the ancient Empire of Ghana, which once extended throughout much of west Africa.

The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external and internal aggressors. In some countries paramilitary forces are included in a nation's armed forces. Armed force is the use of armed forces to achieve political objectives.

The study of the use of armed forces is called military science. Broadly speaking, this involves considering offense and defense at three "levels": strategy, operational art, and tactics. All three levels study the application of the use of force in order to achieve a desired objective.

In most countries the basis of the armed forces is the military, divided into basic Armed services. However, armed forces can include other paramilitary structures. For example, according to the Lithuanian law on organisation of system of national defence and military service (version actual from November 11, 2004), the Lithuanian armed forces in case of war also include border guards, public police service, parts of Lithuanian Riflemen's Union and guerrillas.

Alhaji Aliu Mahama (born 3 March 1946) was Vice-President of Ghana from 7 January 2001 to 7 January 2009. He sought the New Patriotic Party's nomination for the 2008 presidential election, but at the party's convention in December 2007 he received only 6.38% of delegates' votes (146 votes). After this unexpectedly poor result he announced that he would leave politics.