LET US get down to basics. Otumfuo Osei Tutu II has never put himself or Asanteman above the laws of Ghana.
What the occupant of the Golden Stool did at the meeting of the Asanteman Council the other day, was merely to draw the attention of the state to a very serious lapse with far reaching ramifications on the peace and tranquility of the entire nation.
By failing to respond to the news of the kidnapping of Tuobodomhene Nana Baffour Asare II, the state of Ghana was putting everybody at risk.
Otumfuo merely asked the state to do the right thing before some hot-headed youths, seeking revenge on behalf of the Tuobodomhene, took the law into their own hands.
That is why it is unfortunate that some people have chosen not to appreciate the volatile nature of the issue at stake but rather berate the Asantehene. Some anarchists are even calling for the abolition of chieftaincy as an institution in this land of our birth.
Trust Ghanaians to feed fat on people’s distress calls. But this wanton attack on the occupant of the Golden Stool is plain mischief. “Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing”, my apologies to the Founder of Christianity.
It appears subtle but the ramifications are wider. The return of the Umbrella to Government House seems to be fuelling a culture of intolerance directed against the Akans, especially those tracing their ancestral home to the magic of Okomfo Anokye and the royal tutelage of Osei Tutu I.
There appears to have been so much anti-Asante cancerous growth in the minds of some Ghanaians that rational thinking appears to have taken leave of them when discussing issues with Asante anecdotes.
How on this earth should chieftaincy be abolished in a country deep-seated in that tradition? Who, by the way, would carry out the abolition?
Chieftaincy is our way of life and that is duly recognized by Article 270 of the law of the land – the 1992 Constitution. It is the structure that supports our lives as Ghanaians. In Akan societies especially, everybody is an Odehye with a clan stool.
Anybody who does not belong to a clan cannot in all fairness be an Akan.
Long before the advent of the colonial exploiters, chiefs determined how the society was run. They led the people in migration, fought wars when necessary in defence of the society and generally laid down policy guidelines.
In Fanti folklore, Oburumankoma, Odapagyan and Oson, who led the Fantis to migrate from Techiman to their recent home around Mankessim, were all chiefs.
When the British colonial powers took over the administration of the then Gold Coast, they found the chieftaincy institution so engrained in our lives that they chose to administer the society through our chiefs in what came to be known as indirect rule.
Even Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, with all his radical ideas, never attempted to abolish chieftaincy. Rather, he used chiefs to achieve his objectives.
Without a Vice-President or a Prime Minister, ex-President Nkrumah left the administration of Ghana in the hands of Presidential Commissions led by chiefs anytime he traveled outside the country.
When he went on his ill-fated trip to Hanoi in February 1966, the Presidential Commission that administered Ghana was headed by Nana Akyin VI, then Omanhen of the Ekumfi Traditional Area.
Remember Nana Sir Tsibu Darko? He was Omanhene of the Assin Attandasu Traditional Area when Dr. Nkrumah was the political head of the Ghanaian nation. Nana played several roles in the administration of the Convention People’s Party.
It is a fact of life that some chiefs were destooled by the machinations of the Nkrumah regime. Okyehene Ofori-Atta II, for instance, was banished to Accra on the orders of the first President of the Republic of Ghana.
But an incident such as what happened to the Okyeman had more to do with political undertones than disagreements over traditional authority.
If people choose not to relate to their chiefs, probably because they do not visit their ancestral homes, that is their own business.
They cannot impose their thinking on the whole nation. Chiefs are the very embodiments of our tradition.
For the 10 years that Otumfuo Osei Tutu II has occupied the Golden Stool, he has transformed Asanteman with a touch of genius and impacted positively on the entire nation.
The Otumfuo Education Fund, for instance, has aided the growth of education in Asanteman and other parts of society. There are other initiatives on health, culture and many other issues of significance to the whole nation.
I am not an Asante. But the role of Asante chiefs in shaping their spheres of influence should lend itself to emulation by some of us in non-Asante societies in Ghana.
If we cannot match them, we should not condemn them.
When Prempeh I was brought back from exile in Seychelles, the British colonial masters built what is now the museum at Manhyia as residence for the king.
But the Asantehene refused to occupy it until Asanteman had paid every penny the British spent on the building and its furnishing.
The lesson in the ex-Asantehene’s posture is that Asanteman and every Asante must inculcate the habit of self-reliance in him. It is this drive that has made Asanteman and its people, perhaps, the most endowed in the Ghanaian society.
I hope that those who advise on state policy from beclouded tribal spectacles would put aside their hatred for Asanteman and provide the needed guidelines for harnessing a harmonious society.
The other day, when I heard Oseadeyo Akumfi Ameyaw, the Techimanhene, on whose authority the Tuobodom chief was abducted and allegedly tortured at the Techimahene’s Palace before being handed over to the police, spewing venom against the Asantehene, I asked myself; where is this society heading to?
Referring to the captured chief as if he had never sat on a stool, belied the Techimanhene’s believe in chieftaincy as an institution.
According to Otumfuo Opoku Ware II, the immediate past Asantehene, who addressed a press conference in September 1995 to put the record straight on why some chiefs in the Brong Ahafo Region, including Tuobodom, owe allegiance to the Golden Stool, the Techimanhene has gone to great lengths to try and claim some nasal states in the Brong Ahafo area from Asanteman without success.
“The Tano-Subin towns of Ofuman, Tuobodom, Tanoboase, Buoyem, Tanoso, Branam, Nchiraa and Subinso No.1 owed allegiance to the Golden Stool for nearly three hundred years.
In 1935, when the Asante confederacy was restored, a Committee of Privileges was established to examine the conflicting claims of various chiefs in the confederacy to the allegiance of stools and to the ownership of lands”, according to a press statement read by Otumfuo Opoku Ware.
According to the late Asantehene, “the Omanhene of Techiman presented a claim to the Committee of Privileges for the above mentioned towns in the Tano-Subin area and lost.
The committee thus confirmed the allegiance of these nine towns to the Golden Stool. Thereafter, the Techiman stool pursued its claims in various courts up to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and lost in each case.
In 1945, the Omanhene of Techiman made a last effort by way of petitioning King George VI in Council to reverse this decision. However considering the time honoured rights of the Asante, the Techimanhene’s petition was rejected once more”.
The nine towns continued to owe allegiance to the Golden Stool even after the creation of Brong Ahafo Region in 1959.
In the words of the then Minister for Local Government, Aaron Ofori-Atta, “It is not the intention of the present bill (the act creating the Brong Ahafo Region) to disturb any allegiance which may be cut across by the new boundary.
“All stool lands in the Kumasi State, whether lying in the Ashanti Region proper or the new region, are administered by the Commissioner for lands as administration under the Ashanti Stool Lands Act. This bill involves no change in that arrangement”.
Since then, all commissions on chieftaincy have failed to alter that arrangement. The Techimanhene therefore was only being economical with the truth when he sought to bring Tuobodom under his jurisdiction.
By Ebo Quansah
G-News 