Dagbon Must Learn to Move On

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

As the maternal grandnephew of the immortalized Nana Akyea-Mensah (Barima Ohemeng) of Akyem-Apedwa, I have quite a remarkable sense of the grief that the Andanis and the Abudus are going through. The fact of the matter is that no individual or group of individuals can keep on grieving in perpetuity. The living have a bounden obligation not to dwell too much on past hurts and pains, or we risk getting perpetually frozen in time and becoming morally and spiritually stunted.

Make no mistake, both the Andanis and Abudus, descendants of blood relatives, suffered considerable loss of lives in the widely reported carnage that occurred in Yendi some twelve years ago, as credibly indicated by evidence gathered by the Wuaku Commission of investigators. Whatever heinous clashes culminated in the brutal regicide of Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II and his courtiers was incontrovertibly internecine. Consequently, it stands to reason to conclude that whoever played any major role in the infamous and ghastly massacre is likely best known to the leading members of the two royal gates themselves.

What the foregoing means is that the central government can only provide the sort of judicial justice sought by the aggrieved parties with the full collaboration and cooperation of the key local and indigenous political players directly affected by this most horrible tragedy. Now, as we all know, several attempts have already been made to bring the alleged criminal suspects to book, but all to no avail. I will not attempt to drag in the Issah Mobilla case at this juncture, because it is not central to the Dagbon royal family feud at issue. What bears promptly pointing, however, is the fact that the Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II tragedy does not appear to have been a maiden crisis in the affairs of the Dagbon royal family.

And so what is clearly required here is a deliberate and systematic long-term approach aimed at healthily inducing a climate of lasting peace among the members of the two royal gates. And this is also where the wise counsel of Alhaji Asuma Banda comes in handy (See "Andani Royal Family Slams Alhaji Asuma Banda" Ghana News Agency / Ghanaweb.com 1/6/14). The bare fact of the matter is that ex-President Jerry John Rawlings has absolutely no constructive solution to the Dagbon crisis, besides cynically and sadistically fanning the flames of anguish and animosity in a bid to scoring cheap political points. Indeed, the founding father of the so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC), himself a retired bloody dictator, has a lot of questions to answer regarding the brutal "revolutionary" snuffing out of the lives of hundreds of innocent Ghanaian citizens. Else, how would an Indemnity Clause have been inserted into our 1992 Fourth-Republican Constitution?

And here must also be vividly recalled, to our great annoyance, that in the past, Mr. Rawlings has shamelessly and mischievously thumbed his nose at the people of Dagbon by claiming to have in his possession forensically sustainable evidence to facilitate the speedy conviction of the alleged criminal suspects. But as we all know, Mr. Rawlings' so-called evidence had turned out to be largely hearsay and plain mythology. This is not a man to be taken seriously.

Indeed, merely having the Abudus and Andanis board the same airplane may not in of itself be an indication of the discovery of any lasting solution to the problem, but it is at least a significant symbol reflective of the fact of the inextricably interlinked destinies of the members of the two royal gates. This symbolic gesture towards peaceful coexistence, nevertheless, is far more productive than the judicial charade - or travesty - so flagrantly and shamelessly mounted by the erstwhile Mills-Mahama government.

In the end, though, making the local and indigenous government of Dagbon work effectively towards the development of the region and its people, ought to be the greatest and most memorable tribute that the two royal gates could pay Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II, as well as the most lasting memorial to those who brutally perished with him.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Jan. 8, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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