Succession lines must legally be established

Though chieftaincy is part and parcel of the Ghanaian culture, it is increasingly becoming an albatross on our neck. Hardly a day passes without one hearing or reading about chieftaincy related disputes in the country.

These disputes, which most of the time border on succession to a stool or skin, often result in the loss of human lives or destruction of properties. A lot of these stool or skin succession incidents have happened in Dagbon, Anloga and many other places.

The Daily Graphic of yesterday carried a story about the shooting of Nana Atrefum Ampretwum, Paramount Chief of Ofoase in the Asante Akim South district of the Ashanti Region, by an unidentified gun man.

Fortunately, the chief survived the attack, but one of his subjects was reported to have collapsed and died upon hearing the news. The paper did not state the motive behind the attack, but suspects that it might be linked to a chieftaincy dispute in the town.

The late Ashanti King, Otumfuo Opoku Ware II, who was at a time overwhelmed with chieftaincy issues bordering on succession, came out with a policy for the various royal houses in his kingdom, to document their succession lines and give it legal backing.

Unfortunately, he did not live to finish this laudable initiative, but The Chronicle thinks that looking at the latest development on the chieftaincy front, it is about time the National House of Chiefs revisited the issue.

All royal houses in the country must be compelled to document their lines of succession, and give them legal backing.

If this is done, the controversy over who succeeds a late chief or queen would no more arise, because the legal procedure would have been established.

This would also help to curtail the rampant attacks and killing of innocent people in the name of chieftaincy and succession lines.