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Misplaced Disappointment

Feature Article Otumfuor's rep, Nana Brewuo III shows dancing skills at Kofi Annan's funeral
SEP 16, 2018 LISTEN
Otumfuor's rep, Nana Brewuo III shows dancing skills at Kofi Annan's funeral

If he had not made a categorical and public mention of it, obviously in a mischievous bid to shaming and/or embarrassing them, nobody would have perhaps taken notice of the alleged fact that not a single major chieftain of the Ga Traditional Council attended the funeral and burial rites in honor and memory of Mr. Kofi Atta Annan, the globally renowned former Secretary-General of the United Nations (See “We’re Disappointed in Ga Chiefs – Kofi Annan’s Family” Kasapafmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 9/14/18). And Nana Kofi Brewuo, III, described as the Head of the Annan Family, would have quietly escaped with his image and reputation unscathed and/or intact. As it stands, the representative of the Asantehene has ended up confirming what we all hope he had not so unwisely and unseasonably exposed; and here, of course, I am referring to the stereotypical arrogance for which Asantes have become nationally notorious or infamous.

I make exception of his insufferable streak of arrogance, because Nana Brewuo clearly appears to have been aware of the fact that no official invitation to attend the funerary rites for Mr. Annan was ever issued to the members of the Greater-Accra Regional House of Chiefs, and yet Otumfuo Osei-Tutu’s representative expected the Ga Chiefs to have put in a regal and official appearance at Mr. Annan’s funeral simply because, as he personally observes, the land on which the Asantehene’s kinsman was interred is the traditionally and legally recognized property of the chiefs and people of the Ga Traditional Area and the Ga Traditional Council. Indeed, if Nana Brewuo had any remarkable sense of moral and cultural decency, he would rather have humbly issued a statement of apology to the Ga Chiefs instead of imperiously presuming to be invested with the authority of issuing marching orders to these publicly humiliated and indelibly slighted Ga Chiefs.

Would Nana Brewuo have expected any members of the Asanteman Council to have attended the funeral and burial rites for Mr. Annan if absolutely no invitation had been issued to Manhyia Palace? Is Nana Brewuo hereby telling Ghanaians that the Ga species of humanity is decidedly inferior to the Asante sub-ethnic stock, and therefore these “arrogant” Ga Chiefs ought to have shut up and simply deck their togas to attend the funeral of the man whom Nana Brewuo claims had lived most of his adult life in Ghana in the Greater-Accra Metropolis?

Indeed, I was not about to stir the hornet’s nest, as it were, but Nana Brewuo forced me to it with his apparently abject disregard for our cultural norms and traditions as both Ghanaians and indigenous Africans. The fact that the Akwamu-descended Mr. Annan globally distinguished himself as an astute and consummate diplomat does not make the members of the Ga Traditional Council veritable nonentities who must be ridden roughshod over by fellow invested Ghanaian traditional rulers like Nana Brewuo. A word to the wise….

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
September 14, 2018
E-mail: [email protected]

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