GHANA-POLITICS: Chieftaincy Dispute Sparks Bloody Riots

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Edward Ameyibor and Divine Koblah

ACCRA, Feb 19 1996 (IPS) - A dispute between the traditional rulers of two central Ghanaian regions led to weekend riots in which at least six people were killed, scores injured and houses and other property destroyed by fire.

The riots, which occurred in the district of Techiman, were sparked by an apparent move by the king of the Ashanti people, one of Ghana’s main ethnic groups, to reassert his influence over the area, which had once been part of the Ashanti empire but later became autonomous.

Before Britain colonised the Gold Coast (now Ghana) in the late 19th century, the Ashanti Kingdom stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the north of the country, englobing smaller ethnic groups who were made to pay tribute to successive ‘asantehenes’ (Ashanti kings).

These smaller groups included the people of Techiman and other areas in the Brong Ahafo region, which became part of the Ashanti empire during the reign of Asantehene Opoku Ware I, in the first half of the 18th century.

However, two years after independence in 1957, then Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah moved to reduce the power of the Ashanti king — who had clamoured for a federal form of government in Ghana as opposed to the unitary state favoured by the government — by separating Brong Ahafo from the Ashanti region.

While some chiefs who were of Ashanti origin continued to pay tribute to the Asantehene, others — mainly from the Brong ethnic group — refused to pay, including those in Techiman.

In 1972, the government of President Kutu Acheampong set up a commission to resolve the allegiance question, but its findings were never made made public.

However, the constitution does, in fact, state that each of Ghana’s regions is autonomous and has its own house of chiefs, which is no longer bound to pay allegiance to rulers in other regions, including the Asantehene.

The Brong-Ashanti issue remained dormant, but resurfaced on Feb. 12, when Asantehene Opoku Ware II announced the promotion of 17 sub-chiefs to the rank of paramount chief, including four from Tanoso, Tuobodom, Tano Boase and Buoyam in the Techiman area.

The promotion, and by extension the elevation of the status of the four towns, should have been done by the paramount chief of the Techiman Traditional Area, Nana Takyi Ameyaw, who saw the asantehene’s move as meant to reassert his former authority.

Following the announcement, the four towns each had two chiefs, one installed by the traditional kingmakers of Techiman and the other by the Asantehene. However, after the weekend riots, which involved supporters of the rival chiefs, those installed by the Ashanti leader fled the area.

Pointing out that the towns belonged to the Techiman traditional area, Nana Takyi Ameyaw said times had changed and that the Brong people would resist any attempt by the Ashantis to dominate them.

“The elevation of those towns by the Asantehene implies that those towns now belong to the Ashanti Region House of Chiefs and we are not prepared to allow this,” he added.

Nana Ameyaw said the Asantehene’s actions undermined the “sovereignty” of the Techiman Traditional Council and called on him to remove all the chiefs he had installed in Brong Ahafo or hold himself responsible for any calamity that befell them.

The Techiman leader also appealed to President Jerry Rawlings and parliament to intervene otherwise “what will follow cannot be blamed on us. It is Nana Asantehene who has caused it”.

He charged that both the National House of Chiefs, an organ to which all Ghana’s traditional rulers belong, and the state’s Chieftaincy Secretariat in Accra had refused to touch the matter.