Opposition Sitting On A Ticking Time Bomb Planted By President "Abudani" -Part I

Fellow Ghanaians after the various funerals of the demised overlords of the Dagbong kingdom were performed, and the new Ya-Na was enskined, President Akufu Addo, in reiterating his neutrality as a father for all president, named himself AbuDani, to signify the two royal gates of the Dagbong state.

Indeed, the afternoon always knows what the morning never suspected.

Who could have in his or her wildest imagination envisaged a Dagbong with an Overlord within such a short period as 17 years, considering the delicate and volatile nature of the conflict between the powerful Royal gates of Abudus and Andanis of the Dagbong Kingdom?

But God ways are not our ways. We propose and He deposes affairs.

Tons of thanks to the Asantehene led mediation committee that worked tirelessly to ensure the mending and tailoring of a rather shredded kingdom of the Dagbong fast-tracked by the Akufu Addo government.

I have intercepted an article written by the former editor in chief of Accra daily mail, Haruna Atta, entitled "Bring Down this Billboard".

And in that billboard was the Ya-Na and the President of the republic which was captioned: "Thank You Mr. President"

The former editor in chief, Mr. Abdul Rahman Haruna Atta, an NDC's active gaga figure in the media landscape, was of the opinion that the President should not use the prevailed peace of the Dagbong he midwifed to campaign!

What a chicanery and a brazen piece of smug hypocrisy?

If Dagbong found no problem with using their dispute for political gains, when the NDC used it to win massively in the northern region, their attainment of peace can be used by the NPP.

Let's be fair. If President Akufu Addo and the NPP don't use the "peace of Dagbong" to campaign, what would they use to campaign and reclaim the seats they lost to the NDC because of that same crisis?

If the NDC used the crisis to campaign and promised to resolve it, and for eight good years in power, it failed to even hand an olive branch to the disputing parties, how much more the party that resolves it?

A lizard that falls from an Iroko tree says it would praise itself if nobody does.

President Akufu Addo though has enough to campaign on, there's no harm including the "New Dagbong" in his campaign.

Of course, in our local street parlance, it is said that the chicken is never declared innocent in the supreme court of the hawks. But our elders also say if you hate the duke for any reason, at least, you must appreciate its swiftness.

Unless anybody who is intellectually malnourished, politically detached, and historically poorly informed, otherwise any active political culture conscious citizen can tell that the dynamics of the northern regional politics has changed and swung in the direction of the NDC because of the chieftaincy dispute between the two royal gates of Abudus and Andanis.

For instance, it is rumored that chairman Azorka and some other prominent politicians in the north were NPP members, and they were one of the architects in the victory of president Kufuor in the 2000 general elections but decamped to the NDC after the murder of the Overlord.

The NPP was whitewashed as the architect of the April 2002 Dagbong crisis when the Overlord, Ya-Na Yakubu Andani was killed, a great great grandson of Ya-Na Ya'akuba who ascended the Dagbong Namship through a similar military exercise that led to the death of a sitting Ya-Na Sumani in the middle of the 19th century.

Now, the question that has been lingering in the four chambers of many discerning hearts is, has president Akufu Addo changed the dynamics of northern politics uniting the royal gates and bringing their dispute to an end?

Would Azorka and his no-nonsense Boys including others who abandoned the NPP, decamp back to the NPP if this rumor is true?

Truth be told, the Dagbong kingdom had been embattled by an intramural scrimmage, a war of attrition through which many overlords of the Dagbong kingdom ascended the throne by disposing sitting ones since its formation.

It is worthy of note, that the greatest ancestor of the Dagombas, Tohazie, was a warrior himself and it came as no surprise that his descendants were all warriors.

And since the days of the three princes of Na Gbewaa, the son of Tohazie: Tohagu (who started the Mamprugu Kingdom), Shitobu (who continued the Dagbong state), and Mamtambo (who started the Na-numba kingdom), down their younger generations, disposal of overlords by ambitious princes had always been one of the modes of transfer of political power in the Dagbong state.

That is, the issue of killing an overlord by an ambitious candidate in order to take over the kingdom as a new king, had characterized the Dagbong state when the Dagombas seemed to have virtually subdued other kingdoms such as the Gonjas, the Konkombas, among others in the northern enclave in the early 17th century down to the late 20th century in 1994 when the Konkomba war was fought and subsided.

For time and space, I wouldn't want to bother readers with the history of the Dagbong kingdom, but to let them appreciate that they might have been various government involvements in the Dagbong crisis, the fact remains that the overthrowing of Ya-Nas in cold blooded murder didn't start today as witnessed in 2002, even though it mustn't be celebrated.

For instance, Lagfu, helped Na Ziblim Kulunku, son of Na Andani in the 1850s to take over the kingdom from a disputant Sumani, son of Na Mahama.

When Na Kulunku died, Sumani took over the kingdom but Lagfu, who was a chief of Gbungbaliga, came back and killed Na Sumani and paved the way for Na Ya'kuba, another brother of his mother just like he helped Na Kulunku to the paramountcy.

Another case in point before the above in the 17th century, was when Ya-Na Tutugri, son of Na Luro, died and the dispute over a successor took them to Mamprugu. It was between Na Zangina and other princes. And according to the "drum history", a certain malam called Sabali Yarna Yaa Musah predicted the successor of Na Tutugri to be Na Zangina.

The Mamprugu king is said to have mediated in favor of Na Zangina, and the other grieved princes took offence and accused Na Zangina of bribing the king of Mamprugu to win the case.

Therefore, the issue of who becomes the leader of the Dagbong kingdom, since time immemorial, sometimes went beyond mere agreement between the two royal gates, and only the mighty ones ruled by disposing the weaker ones.

It was unfortunate the people of Dagbong forgot their history, and labeled an innocent government as the killer of their king even if the government aided and abetted the killing by not deploring security on time.

After all, it was Dagombas who led the attack and not Chakosi!

Indeed, only God can tell the sufferings people of the north endured during this trying times under a curfew for two good years.

During these trying times, there were all manners of scary and hilarious tales of victims caught by military during curfew hours and the humiliating trauma some of them were handled.

People were mishandled and mistreated by security. Majority loss their businesses and properties.

In one narration, a certain group of villagers were returning from funeral and ran into the curfew hours.

The able-bodied men who were relatively younger were made to receive the beatings of their lives.

It was reported that an old man among them who was making mockery of the groaning men in pain, was made to use his beard to fetch water to fill an empty barrel.

He was to dip his beard into the water, absorb it with his chin's hair and transport it to where an empty barrel was situated in order to squeeze the soaked beard of water into the empty barrel till it was full!

This is but one and the least harrowing experiences majority of Dagombas suffered during the two years of the curfew placed on the entire Dagbong after the murder of the Overlord.

How could the New Patriotic Party then continue to win elections in such an enclave when it was accused of sponsoring and supervising the entire mess?

However, whether true or not, majority have failed to realize, that the government of President AbuDani, it must be placed on record, is different from the government of former president Agyakum Kufuor who presided over that mess.

The NPP today under president Akufu Addo, is not the Kufuor-Ali Mahama led NPP yesterday.

There's a vast difference between the two leaders of the NPP.

I wouldn't want to embark upon a comparison spree, but at least former President Kufuor was a bulky man and God, as we know, does not give "everything" to one individual.

On the contrary, president AbuDani is a half man and smallish in physique and, again, God does not deny an individual "everything".

People with smallish anatomy presentation, it is observed, have a large heart and brains - wisdom and intelligence are their stock in trade.

Perhaps, the same cannot be said for every man bulky in physique.

Again, president AbuDani seems to be more modern, digitized, tolerant, and very accommodating in respect of democratic ethos and values.

Therefore, if the people of the north take cognizance of the aforementioned characteristics of President Akufu Addo as a different individual, the reliance on Abudus and Andanis kind of politicking may come to an end, if not in the upcoming general elections, in subsequent general elections, and the Minority in Parliament must be worried because their leader is on the ticket of one of these constituencies.

I SHALL RETURN.....

Long Live Ghana

The Writer is a student at KNUST, Department of Religious Studies.

Email: [email protected]

Contact: 0557762967/0261669954