Shame On You, Oti-Boateng! – Part 1

I have read the well-calibrated response dispatched by the legal counsel of The Okyenhene, Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori-Panyin, II, to the New Juaben Omanhene, Daasebre Emmanuel Oti-Boateng, and find the same to be precisely what the proverbial doctor ordered (See “Okyenhene Responds to Daasebre Prof. Emeritus Oti-Boateng on House of Chiefs Brouhaha” Ghanaweb.com 8/17/20). I sincerely do not think and believe that the retired Ghana Government Statistician ought to be mollycoddled by either The Okyenhene or the entire leadership and/or membership of the National House of Chiefs (NHC). It is patently clear that it is the insufferable arrogance of the New Juaben Omanhene that is causing all the unnecessary cultural dysfunction of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs (ERHC).

It also begins to clarify matters vis-à-vis the internecine historical hostilities that forced the occupants of the Golden Stool to sack nearly half of the citizenry of Old Juaben from the august and globally revered Asante Federation. In short, from The Okyenhene’s rejoinder, we gather what now appears to be the largely vacuous and inexcusably vitriolic tirades of Prof. Oti-Boateng, as the New Juaben Omanhene has been known professionally. In particular, we learn that the thrower of unspeakable vitriol and, in fact, whole cloths of mendacities, has been literally Absent Without Leave or AWOL from the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs for some 7 or 8 years, which clearly rules Prof. Oti-Boateng out of active and legitimate membership of this local chieftaincy establishment, which also ought to automatically disqualify him from membership of the National House of Chiefs.

So, in a practical sense, the members of the National house of Chiefs also have to bear a significant portion of the blame for the egregious and scandalous conduct of the New Juaben Omanhene, conduct that is decidedly unbecoming of any major Ghanaian chieftain of Nana Oti-Boateng’s status and stature. It is also indisputably beneath contempt to learn to our utter horror and chagrin that during most of the 7 or 8 years that Daasebre Oti-Boateng has been effectively and practically disengaged from active participation in the regular activities and duties of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs, nevertheless, the internationally renowned and distinguished statistician has not shied away from receiving the regular allowances that only active participants in the affairs of the ERHC are entitled. Now, this is what thoroughgoing corruption of the sort widely attributed to former President John Dramani Mahama by the latter’s most ardent ideological detractors and political opponents is unquestionably about.

It is also rather strange that it took so long for The Okyenhene and the other key members and operatives of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs to bring this institutionally reprehensible and regressive conduct to national attention and limelight, which makes Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori-Panyin as legally culpable as the New Juaben Omanhene. Which is also very ironic, because in the two letters previously authored by Nana Oti-Boateng, in which the latter calls the moral character and integrity of his target of vitriol into question, it is The Okyenhene whom the plaintiff intemperately accuses of seriously undermining the integrity and the historical significance of the revered age-old institution of the Monarchy, deliberately and contemptuously mis-designated as Chieftaincy by the British and Western-European colonial imperialists. Which makes the decision by the undersigned counsel for The Okyenhene, Mr. Kwame A. Boateng, to copy his letter to The President of the National House of Chiefs, The Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, and The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana, respectively, all the more appropriate.

We also learn, and this is very difficult and painful for me to observe, being that both the Old and New Juaben Amanhene or Paramount Chiefs are my paternal uncles, who are also related to me on my maternal grandfather’s side of the family, not only has Daasebre Oti-Boateng proven himself to be a veritable fraudster, this prominent traditional ruler also woefully lacks the dignified truthfulness and honesty that ought to be second nature to a personality of his status and stature. His abject disrespect for not only The Okyenhene but the entire membership of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs must also give all avid devotees of the institution of the monarchy and Ghanaian culture, in general, great pause and cause for concern.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

August 17, 2020

E-mail: [email protected]