Legal practitioner and former Attorney General, Nii Ayikoi Otoo, has raised concern over the persistent delays in resolving chieftaincy disputes in Ghana, blaming the situation on a lack of funding.

According to a statement made available to GhanaWeb, Ayikoi Otoo explained that judicial committees of Traditional, Regional, and National Houses of Chiefs, which have exclusive jurisdiction over chieftaincy matters, are unable to operate effectively due to inadequate financial support.

“The delay in hearing chieftaincy disputes in Ghana is due to a lack of funds for paying sitting allowances to judicial committee panel members. By law, exclusive jurisdiction in chieftaincy matters is vested in those judicial committees.

"However, almost all these committees are unable to function effectively and efficiently. In the past, they had problems with non availability of lawyers who assist such committees,” he noted.

He called on the government to make timely and sufficient budgetary allocations to these bodies, emphasising that they are part of Ghana’s lower courts and should be treated with the same financial priority as the judiciary.

"The government should make adequate budgetary allocations in a timely manner and ensure timely releases, or even treat them as they do the judiciary with respect to finances since those committees are part of the lower courts in Ghana," he added.

According to him, the backlog of unresolved chieftaincy cases poses serious national security concerns that must be addressed urgently.

“The several disputes pose national security threats, which ought to be either effectively managed or eliminated. The government should no longer ignore this call,” Ayikoi Otoo stressed.

ID/MA

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