Murder of Ya-Na: Arrest Kufuor and Akufo-Addo

A group calling itself Gubdanda Association from the Northern Region has called on the ruling government to cause the immediate arrest of former President John Agyekum Kufuor and the 2008 flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo, who served as the Attorney-General in the erstwhile NPP government.

According to the group, former President Kufuor and Nana Akufo-Addo are responsible for the murder of Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II and all the others who perished with him during the attack on the Gbewaa Palace in the region eight years ago.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra yesterday, the spokesperson of the association, Alhaji Ibrahim Adams, alleged that former President Kufuor’s “hand are dripping with blood of the late Ya-Na’s death which occurred in March 2002.” He asserted that “former President Kufuor must be held to account for breaching his presidential oath in which he swore, among other things, to dedicate himself to the service and well-being of the people of the country to do the right to all manner of persons.

Alhaji Ibrahim, who sounded somewhat worried over the death of the Ya-Na, pointed out that Kufuor, who swore with a Bible in his right hand used the name of God in vein and lied to the good people of the country and Dagbon in particular, whiles he was aware of the conflicts at the Northern part of the country.

On Nana Akufo-Addo’s alleged role, Alhaji Ibrahim stressed that his (Nana Akufo-Addo’s) conduct, “… in the investigations into the murder of Ya-Na Yakubu II, suggests strongly that he was bent on going to extreme lengths to subvert the cause of justice. His office even extended its interference to the domain of the media where it manipulated some aspects of the news coverage of the proceedings at the Wuaku Commission.

Commenting on the work of the Wuaku Commission which was set up to investigate the matter, the spokesperson indicated that the Commission was a conspiracy to prevent the truth from being exposed, instead of adhering to its term of reference which were subjected to the death of the Ya-Na. According to Alhaji Ibrahim, the Wuaku Commission succeeded in misrepresenting the issue that the tragic events in Yendi were the result of chieftaincy dispute between the Abudu’s and the Andanis.

“All other alternative scenarios such as investigations into the criminal nature of the events were foreclosed. We would like to state emphatically that what happened in Yendi was murder, the brutal murder of the King of Dagbon, Ya-Na Yakubu II; there was no chieftaincy dispute,” he underscored. The spokesperson continued that former President Kufuor had earlier on admitted on nationwide broadcast that the carnage in Yendi was a ‘heinous crime” and promised to bring the law to bear on the criminals and gangs responsible for the dastardly act.

To buttress this point, he said the Wuaku Commission described the act as war. “If indeed it was a war, as the Wuaku Commission would want the whole world to believe, then why did it prefer murder charges on Yidana Sugri and Iddrisu Jahinfo?” he queried.

Ibrahim noted that evidence gathered by the Commission (which he described as “discredited’ commission) clearly confirmed that the armed attack was concentrated on the Palace of the late Ya-Na, and all those killed were members of his retinue and household. “Not a single assailant was killed,” he observed.

He stated that lawyers at the Commission had raised doubts about the validity of the constitutional instrument which allowed the establishment of the Wuaku Commission. He said the doubts were raised based on the fact that the instrument was not laid before Parliament as required by Article 11, Clause 7 of the 1992 Constitution.