Legal action has been taken against Nana Otuo Serebour II, Juabehene, and Messrs Oppong Agyare and Kwabena Dapaah Gyasi, both of Konongo in the Asante Akim Central Municipality of the Ashanti Region, before a Kumasi High Court (Human Rights Division).
The applicants of the suit are Nana Obrane Frimpong, (Twafohene), Okyeame Opoku Manu, Nana Appiah Forkyieh (Saanahene) and Kwame Atta Kakra, all of Konongo.
They are seeking redress under Articles 15, 33 and 270-274 of the 1992 Constitution, and Order 67 of (C.I. 47).
The grounds for the reliefs are Breach of Human Rights and Violation of Rights of applicants conferred by Article 33 of the 1992 Constitution; Illegality and lack of jurisdiction under Arts. 270 -274 of the 1992 Constitution and the Chieftaincy Acts; Unreasonableness, capriciousness, Arbitrariness and Unfairness on the part of the Respondents, and Procedural Impropriety and failure to observe due process.
A notice of motion, filed on Wednesday August 17, 2022, is seeking a declaration that the 1st Respondent contravened Article 33 of the1992 Constitution in relation to the human rights of the 1st-3rd petitioners, by subjecting them to a cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment and punishment in violation of their dignity as human beings when he forced the Konongo sub- chiefs to kneel down and crawl before him.
Other reliefs being sought include a declaration that the basic rights of the Applicants’ opportunities to be heard were breached; a declaration that no person has the jurisdiction and/or authority to make destoolment orders against a deceased chief who was never charged or tried in his lifetime; a declaration that the purported destoolment of the late Nana Batafo Akyeampong Nti II and his sub-chiefs is null and void, and of no legal and customary effect.
They are, therefore, praying for an order setting aside the unlawful act of the declaration of destoolment of the deceased, Nana Batafo Akyeampong Nti II, and his sub-chiefs, and the consequential orders.
The petitioners also want the respondents or any agent, privy or servant of the Respondents prohibited from usurping the traditional functions of the Konongo sub-chiefs, and/or interfering with the burial and funeral rites of the late Konongohene as a Chief.
In an affidavit in support of the motion for the application for redress, Nana Obrane Opuni Frimpong of Old Town Konongo, the first petitioner and occupant of the Twafo Stool of Konongo, on behalf of the other petitioners, indicated that without any charge or committing any wrongdoing the Juabenhene purportedly destooled them, because they swore an Oath of Allegiance to the late Konongohene, Nana Batafo Nti Akyeampong II, which said act was seen as a violation of their human rights and dignity as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.
The deponent swore that following the demise of Nana Batafo Nti Akyeampong II, Konongohene, on January 15, 2022, the 2nd Respondent, who is a Konongo Asona Royal, and the 3rd Respondent is an indigene of Konongo, a grandson of a late Konongo Chief, Nana Kwame Nimo, informed the Konongo Asona Royal Family members and sub-chiefs that the Juabenhene, Nana Otuo Serebour II, Overlord of Konongo, who also doubles as the Chairman of the Council of State, had requested him to bring along to Juaben all the Konongo Stool elders and sub-chiefs.
As a result, all the sub-chiefs, on May 31, 2022, attended to the call, and at the said meeting, which the Juabenhene presided over, and the Bekwaihene in attendance, the Juabenhene said he had destooled the late Konongohene as far as he was concerned over 30 years ago, and that as far as he is concerned he did not recognise him as a late Chief.
The deponent claimed that the Juabenhene ordered all the Konongosub-chiefs to kneel down, crawl before him and remove their nativesandals claiming all the stool elders who swore an oath of allegianceto the late chief had been destooled by him and stripped them of alltheir traditional titles and functions.
Upon which the 2nd Respondent was assigned to oversee Konongo town and to install a new chief to be introduced to the Juaben Overlord within two months.
It was also stated that the 2nd Respondent was directed to see to it that the late Chief was buried within two weeks, but not to be accorded any traditional burial rites as a Chief or a Royal, but to be buried as a commoner/pauper with no royal rites protocols or courtesies.
The petitioner contended that the Judicial Committee of the JuabenTraditional Council properly constituted was the only appropriate legal body to hear, adjudicate, and determine matters affecting chieftaincy within the Juaben Traditional Council under the 1992 Constitution, and the Chieftaincy Act and Regulations, and not the Chief sitting in his palace, and that the May 31 meeting at Juaben at the Omanhene’s palace, presided over by Nana Otuo Serebour II, Juabenhene, with Nana Osei Kwadwo II, Bekwaihene, in attendance was, therefore, not the appropriate legal forum to determine matters affecting the status of chiefs in the Juaben Traditional Council under the 1992 Constitution and the Chieftaincy Act.
Nana Obrane Opuni Frimpong stated that the 3rd Respondent subsequently met the stool elders and the family of the late chief and announced his appointment as Chairman of the Funeral Committee by the 2nd Respondent, and had fixed June 18, 2022, to celebrate the one week funeral rite of the late Chief and fix a date for his final funeral rites, during which meeting the petitioners and the family members told the 3rd Respondent that the 2nd Respondent that it is a notorious fact that the Juabenhene, by the decision of the Supreme Court in “BOAMPONG v.
ABOAGYE AND OTHERS [1981] GLR 927-943”, with regard to the Destoolment and Abdication of Ex-Konongo Chief Nana Kwadwo Boampong, is also the authority for the installation of a Konongo Chief or sub-chief, and the relationship between the elders and the kingmakers of Konongo and Juaben Stool as the Overlord, has no legal or traditional authority to destool a Konongo chief, neither did he have the authority to install a Konongo chief, and that it was the kingmakers at Konongo that were vested with such traditional authority.
He also argued that the Juabenhene could not also destool a chief posthumously, and that the late Konongo Chief was recognised and gazette, and reigned for 41 years from May 1981 to January 15, 2022and that he should be accorded all the royal rites and protocols becoming of him as a late chief, which position was buttressed by an extract from the National House of Chiefs.
The deponent of affidavit said the argument by the Juabenhene that he litigated with him (late Konongohene) was untenable, because from 1907 to 1954, and again in 2009, there had been over six cases in court initiated by successive chiefs of Juaben, from Nana Kofi Boaten to Nana Otuo Serebour II, against the Konongo Stool, but in all those cases, the Juaben Stool lost.
He explained that all the causes of the said litigation had been due to the claim by the Juaben Stool and its attempt to expropriate Konongo Stool lands and mining royalties through various surrogates, and attempts to totally humiliate Konongo chiefs who they claimed to be their chattels they bought for €30 (pre-dawn) from a certain Oyokohene in the early part of the 18th century, which claim was disputed because it was not verified as found at page 179 in one paragraph in “Rattrays Ashanti Laws and Constitution” as told by the Juaben chiefs without any research or cross checking.
The deponent further explained that the late Chief was also sued by the Juabenhene at the Ashanti Regional House of Chief in the year 2004 as Chief of Konongo, and swore an affidavit to that effect, which case run through to the National House of Chief on the installation of the Konongo Queenmother, and also litigated with him over Konongo Stool land leases and royalties, which cases brought bad blood between the two chiefs.
According to the Twafohene of Konongo, some of those suits were still pending in courts, and that the Juabenhene was just using his authority to punish and humiliate the late Chief even in death for resisting his attempts to allegedly sell Konongo Stool lands without his consent and sign Konongo leases, acts frowned upon by the High Court which ruling was that the Overlord could not sell or sign Konongo leases, not first signed by a Konongo chief.
He said, based on the Supreme Court ruling in BOAMPONG v. ABOAGYE ANDOTHERS [1981] GLR 927-943 that Juaben Stool could not destool a Konongo Chief in Juaben, and that it was only the Konongo Kingmakers who could destool a Chief at Konongo, and that the event at Juaben on May 31, 2022, was a nullity and an attempt through the backdoor to reverse trite customary traditions, usages and judicial decisions.
Following the above contentions, the petitioners asserted that Nana Batafo Akyeampong Nti II died as Chief of Konongo, and should be laid to rest as a Chief with all the royal courtesies and protocols as supported by previous decisions by the Asanteman Council and the courts that a chief or sub-chief could not be destooled if they had not been found guilty of any wrongdoing, since no charge or charges had been preferred against any one of the sub-chiefs before the Judicial Committee of the Juaben Traditional Council which is theconstitutional and legal body vested with authority to adjudicate onmatters pertaining to chieftaincy within the Juaben Traditional
Council.
As a result, the Twafohene contended that even though he is theparamount chief of the traditional council, the Juabenhene sitting in his palace is not clothed with the authority of a Judicial Committee of a Traditional Council, which processes and proceedings were regulated by law and the rules of natural justice, adding that being the Chair of the Council of State did not grant him the right to deviate from statutory and customary law.
He also referred to the ruling of the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, in the case of Ohenenana Akwasi Prempeh Vrs Nana Juabenhene held at Manhyia Palace by the Asanteman Council on April 23, 2012, “the authority that a chief is nominated and installed in Juaso, swears his oath of allegiance to his subjects in Juaso before being sent to Juaben to swear his oath to Juabenhene is the case and not vice versa” for which reason Barima Safrotwie Sarpong II’s installation as Chief of Juaso was nullified.
The petitioners stated that the funeral of the late Chief of Konongo had since stalled as the petitioners and the Konongo Asona Royals and family had no access to the palace to conduct the funeral of the late Chief, as required by customary practice and usage, because the palace had been locked up by the respondents.
It is against these contentions that the petitioners were seeking the reliefs, and believe that it was only a court of competent jurisdiction that could compel the respondents to give access to the family and elders to conduct the funeral of the late Chief.
