Agric minister lied, I only gave him a smock not a chieftaincy title – Yagbonwura

The Yagbonwura Tutumbabori Assa 11, Paramount Chief of the Gonja Traditional Area has denied conferring a chieftaincy title on the Minister of Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, indicating that the minister was merely honoured with a smock as custom stipulates.

A statement from the Buipewura Jinapor II who is the Permanent Secretary to the Gonja Traditional Council, he said “Nowhere, I repeat nowhere was Chieftaincy Title conferred on the Agric Minister."

The Minister of Agriculture was recently much criticized in the media for comments about Northern Ghana which some found offensive or ethnocentric.

But he hit back saying his comments were taken out of context and deliberately misrepresented to make him look bad only for news to emerge that he had been enskinned as a chief.

But the statement from the Buipewura reads “Who told you all that the Agric Minister was enskinned as a chief in Jakpa palace?? I Buipewura Jinapor 11 received him on behalf of the King.

"In my Welcome address, I asked him about what was going round on Social Media about Northerners. He denied it and went further to explain.

"Thereafter as Custom demands I presented to him, Gonja Smock.Nowhere, I repeat nowhere was Chieftaincy Title conferred on the Agric Minister.

"Folks with this Propagandist publication, any serious-minded Royal of Gonja Kingdom will seek clarification first from Jakpa palace before going to Town with Insults. I rest my case but with a promise that we shall overcome.”