body-container-line-1
07.06.2023 Feature Article

What Is the Chieftaincy Ministry Doing about this Patent Act of Sacrilege?

What Is the Chieftaincy Ministry Doing about this Patent Act of Sacrilege?
07.06.2023 LISTEN

Reports that The Okyenhene, Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori-Panyin, II, ordered the mortal remains of some chiefs and royal family members of Amanase, in the Akuapem-South District or Constiuency of the Eastern Region, to be exhumed from that town’s royal mausoleum did not flabbergast this writer the least bit, as revolting and abominably sacrilegious as it may seem (See “Police Retrieve Exhumed Bodies Kept at Palace after Ofori-Panin Fie Sold Cemetery to Investor” Starrfm.com / Ghanaweb.com 4/20/23). You see, this is not the very first time that any news report has alleged that Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori-Panyin, II, has literally ordered the desecration of lands under his jurisdiction, ostensibly with future human development of Okyeman lands foregrounded or foremost in perspective.

Years ago, The Okyenhene was widely accused of timber-logging in the Banso Sacred Grove or Royal Mausoleum where most of his predecessors are “buried” with his deceased uncle, Yaw Guggisberg (Nana Yaw Guggie/Gorgie) or Yaw Asante, an accusation which The Okyenhene vehemently denied. Anyway, the very first of the kind of desecration that we are discussing here which came to my attention as a media operative, had to do with the excavation of a portion of the cemetery of the main or original Kyebi Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana – I hear there are currently two Presbyterian Assemblies or Churches in the Kyebi Municipality – several years ago. In the latter instance, yours truly actually learned about this cultural horror while making arrangements to have some tombstones mounted on the graves of his paternal grandmother, Madam Laura Akua Yeboaa (aka Auntie ’Kua) of Kyebi-Aburaso, his eldest aunt and several other relatives.

I would learn from one of my elder cousins that, indeed, The Okyenhene and/or some higherups on the sociopolitical rungs in Kyebi had ordered the bulldozing of a remarkable portion of the aforementioned cemetery in order to create ample space for the burial of some members of The Okyenhene’s family, whose imminent deaths appeared to be in the offing or on the horizon, as it were – well, quite a while back, I was made excruciatingly painfully aware of the fact that in the scale of kinship, Nana Adwoa Apeakoramaa’s lineage did not really count, which did not really bother me the least bit, since our Asante-Juaben relatives had already assured us that we were no ordinary species of Akan humanity to be so disdainfully told off or witheringly disparaged. I often do not mention my mother’s maternal side of the family either because until very recently, we were regarded as “dirty, contaminated half-Ewes” who could not be really taken into account, when it came to a serious discussion of royalty. We were not even the sort of “Spare” royals that Prince Harry allegedly talks about in his recently published autobiography. But, of course, as the morally disturbing case of Amanase shows, in the end, we all have to go back to Mother Earth. Plain and simple.

Anyway, I wrote quite extensively about this veritable act of desecration at the time and so do not intend to presently reprise the same herein, except to glancingly or tangentially remark on the imperative need for our traditional rulers not to gruffly and cavalierly prioritize present economic needs, no matter how pressing such need or needs may be, over and above the equally significant necessity of preserving our cultural memory and heritage. You see, the preservation of our collective memory as a people and a subethnic polity within the greater geopolitical confines of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana cannot be trivialized or cavalierly frivoled with in the manner in which The Okyenhene is widely reported to have done.

Now, the Dear Reader can couple the preceding with the apparently crippling inability of a significant majority of our invested traditional rulers all over the country, with a negligibly few exceptions, to radically root out the existential menace of the wantonly predatory Galamsey industry, and matters could not be even more disturbing. In the case of the horrific desecration of the Amanase royal mausoleum, we learn to our utter chagrin that The Okyenhene sold what appears to be prime landed property to an unnamed developer, for the purpose of constructing a gas station and perhaps regular rent collection, as well, well before the members of the Amanase township and community were brought into an awareness of the brokering of such an environmentally impactful deal. And then these “royally” disrespected citizens and residents were asked to discuss the merits and the demerits of this transaction well after the fact.

In reality, and this writer humbly stands to be promptly corrected, what ought to have first occurred ought to have been for The Okyenhene and the Chiefs and the people of the Amanase township to have been called to a Townhall Meeting or the precolonial and traditional equivalent of a Parliamentary Assembly to fully debate the fact of whether the “Ancient” Amanase Royal Mausoleum needed to be preserved or conveniently relocated, in view of presently pressing socioeconomic exigencies, to make way for the construction of the aforementioned gas or petro-filling station. That was how precolonial democracy was conducted by and among the Akan-language speaking people of Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, Togo, Burkina Faso and other parts of the West African Subregion.

As of the initial filing of the news report on which the present column is based, we were informed that the Regent of Amanase, Obenfo Addo Agyekum, who also doubles as the Gyaasehene or Cabinet Secretary of the Amanase Traditional Council, had been invited by the Director or Chief of the Criminal Investigations Division (CID) of the Suhum District Headquarters of the Ghana Police Service for further interrogation. As highlighted by the caption of this column, this is a matter that squarely falls under the statutory jurisdiction of the Minister for Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs; and clearly, both the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs and the National House of Chiefs as well. The dignity and the collective memory of our cultures and our heritages and civilizations need to be jealously protected and staunchly preserved, and not left to the capricious whims of any one or even a handful of our most influential and powerful invested traditional rulers. If we want foreigners to respect our customs and traditions and our very humanity and civilizations and cultural institutions as well, then, as the cliché goes, charity must begin at home.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
June 3, 2023
E-mail: [email protected]

body-container-line