It is Time to Reform our Chieftaincy in Accordance with our Democratic Principles

Our country is a republic, run under a constitutional government in which all are deemed to be equal before the law. Before our laws, all of our citizens are created equal, imbued with the inalienable right to life, liberty, freedom, justice and dignity.

Therefore we don’t recognize royal blood. And we don’t recognize any authority beyond the supreme authority of our elected government, which we have voted into power for a time certain, and vested with the cognizable, sovereign authority which it derives according to the prescribed terms of our constitution. That is all the extent of the laws that guard and guide the authority vested in our government.

We don’t recognize any other sovereign power by blood line or by birth. That will be in direct contradiction with our republican principles and create an anomaly and anathema for our leadership. It follows therefore that nobody has the right to declare anybody of inferior birth, or to hold any powers not prescribed under our constitution, or to assert any other authority beyond the glass ceiling afforded by the constitution.

And I say all this because it appears to me that the institution of chieftaincy, as defined under article 277 of our constitution, is an anomalous institution that runs contrary to the spirit and letter of our laws. It has also embarked on a certain power grab which might exceed the one granted and permissible under our constitution. In this, we are treading a very dangerous path to factional absolutism and separatist authoritarianism.

By basing its authority on royal bloodline, chieftaincy per se runs counter to our republican principles of government. But it may still be permissible or voluntary for any group of people to choose their own concurrent leadership to run alongside our republican system. However this type of choice leadership has to accord with the spirit of our constitutional instrument, and become self aware of its obligation to the national government under which it must be subservient and operate in humility, peace and cooperation.

The problem is that in these days and times, there appears to be a dangerous development regarding the self-assumed authority of these chiefs. They appear to be more concerned about their egos, than about any real functions they can perform within their communities.

Some of these chiefs have refused to acknowledge the national government’s precedence over them according to our constitutional arrangements, appearing to assert a certain unexplained right to remain seated when the President of the republic shows up at a durbar to greet them. This is against the legitimate rules of courtesy that must necessarily be extended to our President under protocol, and as envisaged under our republican constitution. The soul of our nation is unified in our President, not in any chief. While these chiefs represent discrete parts of the nation, the President represents all the nation. He is the First Gentleman under law, and we must acknowledge the precedence he holds as per proper protocol, and not deceive ourselves to any fantasy of superior chieftaincy power. There is none anywhere in Ghana superior than the President. The constitution is very clear on this.

To the extent that their office is merely accommodated under the authority of the constitution, that same document makes all chiefs subservient to the President, or even his representatives and appointees. This is without any exception. And this rule of acknowledging the President by standing up to greet him should apply to all chiefs in uniformity, including the Asantehene,

Yabomwura, Togbes, and every other occupant of any stool in the country. And a refusal to do so should be construed as an affront to our unitary republican state over which one sole person has been elected to rule for a time certain over all the citizens without exception.

Indeed, the chiefs are gradually eroding their own authority within their own jurisdictions by refusing to abide by this rule, and it is also symbolic of their own ineptitude and lack of awareness of their role, purpose and functions within the unitary state. They have allowed their lands and waterbodies to be destroyed through the gallamsey menace in which they are alleged to be heavily involved…… Their cities are generally dirty, and their activities appear to honor the traditions of a bygone era whose benefit to the society remains in great doubt. They have failed to evolve a scheme of progressive leadership that accords well with the modern democratic era, and they remain anachronistically irrelevant to their societies, only taking pleasure in becoming artifacts for foreigners interested in anthropological spectacles that recall the primitive time of internecine warfare.

Besides, the traditional chiefs have become consistent source of insecurity in the country, wherein the very questions of their successions have tied up the legal system in a deluge of litigations for years. They have not been accountable to their people from whom they demand all sorts of privileges, including shares in land and mineral stakes; nobody asks them how they disburse the money owned by their subjects.

Moreover, the chiefs are a canker to the unity of government insofar as they pose a direct threat to the directive principles of national policy which asserts the total integration of the whole people as one nation, one people with a common destiny under one single authority of government. It seems to me by our chieftaincy system that we are touting different nations within the country in which some sections of the population assert illegitimate authority that runs counter with our republican system of government.

Some things must change to accord with our republican principles. We can have our Chieftaincy all right; but we can never accept royalty in concurrence with our republican principles. Our system of democratic government can only be under meritocracy where a person’s quality is ascertained by his abilities, not by his birth or bloodline. That kind of notion has been rejected by all civil societies the world over, as it constitutes the seminal rationale behind our quest for independence, freedoms and justice. Nobody can ever be deemed superior for any function of leadership simply by accident of their birth.

Then also, any sovereignty of any kind, no matter its jurisdiction, must simply derive its authority from the people who should be able to renew their mandate, or to take power from them. The system where one person, or even a group of persons, install chiefs here and there must immediately end. No matter how appropriate it might seem on the surface, it can fester toxicity under the fabric of society and eventually explode. Nobody should have any final authority in the jurisdiction of its chieftaincy without seeking that authority from the people.

Finally, the whole notion of culture, which gives the sense that nothing should change must end. Our culture itself must be dynamic and should develop its own ways and means to deal with its leadership. It must modify to keep pace with the global berth of politics, science, technology and culture.

We cannot be ossified in place, with our chiefs wrapped in bright clothes and bedecked with ostentatious jewel and oversized flip flops. Our leaders must get up and be seen to function as active leaders, not merely as tin gods for whom we must daily flatter and bow.

By Dr. Samuel Adjei Sarfo, Esq.