“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”
The King in: Henry IV (Act 3 Sc 1)
“I recall that in 2020, when Volta Region fell siege from soldiers sent from Accra in the run-up to the elections we came together. A number of Chiefs from the Volta House of Chiefs visited the President to appeal for mercy on our people.
Sadly, we left extremely disappointed. For instance, it was said that I, Togbe, was going around the registration centres interfering with the process, which was not true. It was said that we the chiefs, were all NDC and that we typically imported voters from Togo holding them for weeks so they could vote for the NDC. Those were the comments made against us, right in our presence…” The words used by TogbeAfede were “embarrassed” and “denigrated”
These were the words we heard and saw on TV from TogbeAfede, XIV President of the Asogli Traditional Area when President John Mahama visited Ho as part of his nationwide “thank you” tour.
According to TogbeAfede, some of the Volta Chiefs who called on President Akufo-Addo at the Jubilee House (now re-named Flagstaff House) were accompanied by the then Regional Minister, Dr. Archibald Yao Letsa and Hohoe NPP parliamentary candidate, Peter Amewu.
As usual, the on-line critics have fed fat at this “revelation”. Anthony Yaw Dagadu: “The President failed miserably. Posterity will judge him”. Atta Kitiwa: “Why is it that any time power changes from NPP to NDC, you suddenly come up with a tall list against the former NPP President. It’s curious and strange to me”.
The outspoken Togbe had early at the 2024 AsogliTe Za Grand Durbar in Ho (18th November, 2024) decried the negative focus of leaders on personal wealth rather than national progress: “While other leaders are focused on development, ours have been focusing on property ownership. They have replaced our colonial masters in the reckless scramble for the national resources that belong to all of us… Our democracy has become an enterprise that benefits a few. Ghana has become like an orphan child raped by the very people who have obtained our mandate to take care of her. Corrupt officials are like termites at the woodwork, eating at the very foundation of our development… I have become a victim… when I returned money paid to me as ex-gratia, that I thought not deserved…unfortunately, with the complicity of the Council of State secretariat, the impression was given that I was an absentee member of the Council…” Togbe could not keep his frustration, If no one would say it, we would. “Togbe, made kuku, sia “(We did our National Service at Vakpo Secondary School, so we can recollect some of the words taught us by Prof. Anku). And talking about the Ewe language, Hon. Afenyo-Markin could not pronounce “Avoeme” (in Aflao) during the vetting of DzifaGomashie. He turned to the Minister-designate for help saying: “I’m an Anlo man, but I’ve been living in Effutu Winneba for many years. I can’t speak the language properly. That’s a fact, and I won’t deny it.” We can teach bits of the language, as part-time teachers, with our smattering of the Ewe language.
Coming in the wake of these developments, President John Mahama is seen in his “thank you” tour making gestures for chiefs to sit down while he goes round to shake hands with them. Wow! So, you see “humility” on display, as against an “arrogant” President who in an unprotocolic manner would make gestures for chiefs to get up and salute him! What a comparison?
Chieftaincy in our part of the world has played a key role in the development of our various ethnic groups. In the pre-colonial period, chiefs played important economic, administrative, judicial, cultural, religious, military roles.
During colonial times, the colonialists saw how chieftaincy had got rooted as an institution, and Lord Lugard in his “indirect rule” did not abolish it but made effective use of it – to the extent that even in “chiefless” ethnic groups in Volta, Upper East, Upper West Regions, chiefs were either “selected” or “imposed” on the people.
In other cases, there were “mergers” like the Mamprugu, Kusasi, Grunshie, Frafra and Builsa who had the Nayiri (Chief of Mamprugu) as the paramount chief.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s comment: “chiefs will run away and leave their sandals” did not lead to the abolition of chieftaincy. Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia had researched into the “position of chiefs in the modern state”, and established the Chieftaincy Act 370 in 1971. A La Mantse is quoted as saying: “The influence of the chief so permeates, the whole fabric of social life in the rural communities that if only a purposeful effort had been made in the past to reshape the institution to give it a modern outlook, chieftaincy would have played a more useful role in the life of the nation”.
This goes in tandem with what J. H. Mensah, Senior Minister in Kufuor’s administration said: “We should apply our minds assiduously to reshaping the institution for today’s world”.
The 1992 Constitution recognizes the relevance and importance of chieftaincy. Article 270 of the said Constitution says: “The institution of chieftaincy, together with its traditional councils as established by customary law and usage, is hereby guaranteed” (2) Parliament shall have no power to enact any law which (a) confers on any person or authority the right to accord or withdraw recognition to or from a chief for any purpose whatsoever; or (b) in any way detracts or derogates from the honour and dignity of the institution of chieftaincy…”
To ensure the “sanctity” of the institution, Article 276 provides that (1) A chief shall not take part in active politics, and any chief wishing to do so and seeking election to Parliament shall abdicate his stool or skin. All these are bolstered by the Chieftaincy Act, 2008 and the new Chieftaincy Act 2020.
Hans Christian Anderson’s story of 1837 of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is apposite here. Some tricksters deceived the King into believing they could spin the best clothes for him. They “brought” the clothes for the King to wear, and warned that anyone who could not see the clothes was stupid. A child, seeing the King naked exclaimed: “But he doesn’t have anything on!” an innocent child’s honesty opened the sluicegate for the admission by the courtiers of the truth. The moral here is that if a President deludes himself into believing in himself and shunning every advice (even from the Opposition) he lives in a world of fantasy. Remember, power is fleeting and ephemeral. What didn’t President Ferdinand Marcos do in the Philippines in 1972 to 1981 under his “constitutional authoritarianism”? Or, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi between 1969 and 2011 with his “Green Book” and his “Jamahiriya”? Or Uganda’s Iddi Amin who overthrew Dr. Milton Obote in 1971 and seized power until he was overthrown in 1979 and he died in Saudi Arabia in 2003. He was aptly described by Tanzania’s President Julius Nyerere as “a murderer, a liar and a savage”. Or Saddam Hussein of Iraq, President from 1979 to 2003…the list could go on and on, to talk of Germany’s Adolf Hitler, France’s Napoleon Bonaparte… but what was their end.
This advice should go to every politician-and to every public officer.
In Lamentation 1:1 we read: “How doth the city sit!… She was great among the nations and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!”.