Culture, Chieftaincy, Progress or Chaos I

Culture, Chieftaincy, Progress or Chaos I

By E. Ofori Akyea

I had not planned to return to this subject at this time. Recent events have, however, necessitated the revision of schedules to treat this all important subject in our national life. The events surrounding the enstoolment or otherwise of a new Awoamefia in Anlo have been important elements in having to comment on the situation. The controversy surrounding the nomination and subsequent “enstoolment” of a new chief is nothing new in our local governance procedures.

In Anloga, however, there were danger signs all along. In the course of the last four years several red flags have gone up. Those responsible for dealing with the problem either did not think it was that serious or they just closed their eyes to the danger signals. In the end seven people, including a police officer, were killed. The whole of Anlo is in turmoil. All citizens have had their lives rudely disrupted in one way or the other. Educational and economic activities are suffering as a consequence. A country striving to be a middle income country cannot afford to be spending its time in these kinds of useless and energy sapping controversies. They do not contribute in any way to the development of our nation.

As is usual in these situations accusations keep flying in all directions. The police, however, seem to be the butt of most of the accusations. There are several accusations of police brutality subsequent to the rioting and the imposition of the curfew in the area. Indeed, one person died in police custody in Ho, the Regional capital. Everyone including the government, the contestants, the Regional House of Chiefs, the ordinary people as well as a poor innocent cow being led meekly to be sacrificed, all had their bit of the venom. Several people are in custody for their alleged part in the confusion while the town of Anloga is still under curfew.

As if the above troubles were not enough this paper reported with accompanying photographs of mayhem in Princess Town in the Ahanta West District over a protracted chieftaincy dispute. Ahanta is on the Western side of Ghana while Anlo is on the Eastern side of the country. The general population fled, in classic refugee fashion. A sub chief of Akatakyi, Nana Tabi Tiaka and one John Yankey lost their lives in the rioting. Reports have come in form Adoagyiri near Nsawam of clashes related to chieftancy which it is said also claimed some lives. Observers say that all is not well in the Nanumba , Kokonba area. When these things happen social and economic life is severely disrupted and development is stifled. Schools, for instance, remain closed and the education of our future generation gets compromised.

Instead of us working to improve the quality of our lives we seem hell bent on destroying ourselves by indulging in these destructive chieftaincy disputes. Of the many pending chieftaincy disputes one does not know which one will blow up tomorrow.

Even more disturbing to me is the report that there are some 300 chieftaincy dispute cases pending before the different Regional Houses of Chiefs in the country. The macabre part of the story is that some dead claimants of stools and ex-chiefs are still in mortuaries while the living litigants do battle in court. Part of the problem is that non royals are using their money to muscle their way into occupying royal stools. We shall deal with this and other issues hobbling the chieftaincy institution below.

In the case of the Volta Regional House of Chiefs they are unable to adjudicate on the matter of the Awoamefia and the 33 other cases before them because a court injunction against the officers of the House and the Attorney General to hold new elections. The acting President of the House Togbega Gabusu VI states that the Judicial Committee is unable to work because there has been no lawyer to assist it in its work. Also there are now no substantive officers of the House, he says, to carry out the assignments because of the court injunction placed on the eve of the elections six years ago.

The issue of the legal counsel has since 1^st November 2007 been settled. We hope that the pending cases will be disposed of with appreciable speed. Togbega Gabusu VI states that the Regional House could not on its own employ a legal council since it was the government that was to pay the legal council. Now that the issue has been resolved with the appointment of the legal counsel the pending issues will be speedily dealt with.

To use a cliché, everyone agrees with me that chieftaincy is the bedrock of our traditional society. Since time immemorial our societies have been governed through the institution of chieftaincy. Over time, however, the institution has gone under tremendous change. In times past ambitious chiefs led their people to war to add to their territories. Sometimes they succeeded. On other occasions they failed miserably and lost not only land but people. On another continent a man known as Napoleon Bonaparte, in spite of his brilliance in administration and in the art of war, left France smaller than he found it.

Chieftaincy had its greatest test during the slave trade and colonial periods. Some chiefs colluded with the colonialists to either enrich themselves, to gain territory or to enhance their positions. With the backing of the European traders some ambitious individuals managed to become chiefs. Many of them did this by using their western education or plain guile to manipulate the system to their advantage. Suspicion has been that some of the chiefs were ready to sell themselves and for that matter sacrifice their people for a pot pottage.

In our discussion of the role played by our chiefs in our predicament we tend to forget the role played by marauding Arabs in enslaving millions of our ancestors long before the Europeans set foot on our shores. Our castrated ancestors became the trusted staff of their harems and of their personal fighting forces. The other cruelties meted out to our forebears tend to be forgotten under the barrage of the propaganda that the Western, latter day colonialists make us believe that we were and are heading to paradise under their tutelage.

Whatever progress has happened is starring us in the face. Later European colonialism succeeded in bringing us to where we are now. We have been thoroughly indoctrinated into believing that without the Europeans and those we fondly call our development partners, we are consigned to the dustbin of history into being hewers of wood and drawers of water.

It is no accident that with the advent of modern politics chiefs became the butt of attacks from the new politicians. The chiefs were perceived to be facilitating the efforts of the European invaders in plundering their country. Note that the territories that the Europeans were laying claim to belonged to differing and different people. The chiefs they were dealing with did not see anything wrong with helping an outsider to subdue and bring their traditional enemies to heel.

Of course, as these things were going on other individuals were also plotting their accession to power and glory. These individuals did what all power hungry people do. They were ready to betray their own so long as it suited their scheme. A few succeeded. These created problems for the future for the traditionalists never gave up and sought to correct the mistakes of the past.

So long as the Europeans were pulling the strings all seemed to go well. With the appearance of people like Kwame Nkrumah on the scene the dynamics changed. The chiefs who were working against independence because they thought that with independence their situations will be weakened or indeed, abolished sided with the colonisers. Kwame Nkrumah’s declaration that the chiefs would run away and leave their sandals behind became the code for the chiefs hating him, of his being accused of being against law and order and subsequently of the need to get rid of him.

Our chiefs, on the one hand are a force for progress. I visited a town in our country a few weeks back. As I drove into town I noticed a great deal of excitement around a bridge. The young new chief, I was informed, has instituted a rule that each second Wednesday of the month, the inhabitants were to engage themselves in desisting a drain so as to obviate the possibility of parts of the town being flooded when it rained. If the project was well done the channel would also destroy the breeding grounds of mosquitoes. Need I say more?

These days the problem has mutated. We see people with money trying to muscle their way into chiefdoms. Given the prevailing poverty situation in our societies all one has to do is to pay regular visits to the target area. One makes big donations at church harvests. The person also shows up at funerals and makes sure that the contribution he makes is made known via the public address system. Later the kingmakers are made welcome at his residence for drinks, food and the ubiquitous brown envelopes. Promises are extracted for finding jobs for cousins, nephews and other relations of questionable pedigree.

Come the day of the selection and the kingmakers employ all manner of arguments or none at all to justify why money bag or his lackey is the rightful successor to the stool in question. Outraged citizens are accused of being non progressive and accused of having no real understanding of the history of the stool. These protesters face an uphill task of becoming credible advocates for the right thing to be done. Some of these kingmakers come out with contorted versions of the succession history of the stool. This is when the confusion and its attendant troubles get born and nurtured.

(To be continued)