Ghana Armed forces museum is one of the few Military museums in Africa. It is located in the Uaddara Barracks in Kumasi, the capital city of the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The Prempeh Museum, Kumasi Cultural Centre, Kumasi Zoo, and Kumasi Central market are all within walking distance of the fort.
The Ghana Armed Forces museum was built in 1953. During that time the colonial master of Ghana allowed it to serve as a historical center where military history and might of Ashanti and Ghana as a whole could be learned.
The Kumasi Fort was built in 1820 by the Asantehene (the King of the Asante Kingdom), Osei Tutu Kwamina, to resemble the coastal forts which were built by European merchants. Kumasi Fort had to be rebuilt in 1897, after it was destroyed by British forces in 1874. The fort was built from granite and brown soil that was brought from Cape Coast to Kumasi by porters.
In March 1900, during the Asante Rebellion, the fort was encircled, and 29 Britons were trapped inside for several weeks. The leader of this rebellion was the Queen Mother of Ejisu, Ohemaa Yaa Asantewaa. After a brief period of imprisonment in the fort, she was forced into exile in the Seychelles, where she died.
From 1952 to 1953, after the Second World War, the Armed Forces of the British Colonial Government took over the fort and converted it into a museum. The Ghana Armed forces museum exhibits military equipment, artifacts, and other objects used in the British-Asante war of 1990 and during the Second World War. The collection includes weapons of war, colors, medals, armored cars, anti-aircraft guns, photographs, and portraits. This serves as a valuable historical institution for tracing the evolution and development of the Gold Coast Regiment of the colonial era, to the present-day Ghana Armed Forces.
There is a British Military Cemetery just about 200m northwest of the Kumasi Fort and Military Museum, which contains graves of British casualties of the Yaa Asantewaa War.
The Ghana Armed forces museum is open daily and hosts about thousands of tourists every year.