Hundreds of peasant farmers in Akyem Apedwa, a farming community in the Abuakwa South Municipality of the Eastern Region, last Friday poured on to the principal streets of the town to register their displeasure with their Chief, Osabarima Asante Frimpong Manso II, over the alleged sales of about 6,000 acres of farmland to private developers.
The affected peasant farmers, who are not happy with their Chief, alleged that Osabarima Asante Frimpong Manso II had amply demonstrated intentionality to wrongfully and illegally take over their lands for real estate developers and sand-winning companies.
The angry demonstrators displayed various placards with inscriptions such as “Give us our lands”, “Money-minded Chief”, “Greedy Chief stop selling our farmlands,” to drum home the magnitude of their displeasure.
Speaking to the media shortly after about three hours of demonstration, the Spokesperson for the group, Ampaw Acheampong, indicated that the Chief and his cohorts were denying the farmers their sources of livelihoods.
He explained that the Chief and his cohorts were using land guards with sophisticated offensive weapons to chase them (farmers) from their legally acquired farmlands anytime they made an attempt to go to their farms.
Responding to the various allegations raised against him, Osabarima Asante Frimpong Manso II noted that there was no family land in the Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Area.
He opined that the Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Council was the allodia custodian of all Okyeman Stool Lands, and was, therefore, surprised that the farmers were crying out for nothing, when they well knew that there was no family in Akyem Abuakwa that owned land.
Taking the demonstrators to school on the state of the farmlands, he, however, admitted leasing the farmlands to a private developer whose name he did not disclose at the time of filing this report.
“The farmlands in question have not been sold, but rather leased to the private developer over a period of time,” he stressed.
Demonstrating how he had used the proceeds from the sales, Osabarima Asante Frimpong said he had embarked on some developmental projects, including the construction of a modern Junior High School classroom block among others from the lease of the land.
