When will we see an end to the Nkonya-Alavanyo feud?

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BERNARD 7 years ago

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Kweku 7 years ago

What, exactly, is the nature of the conflict?

What are they fighting about?

How did the conflict start?

What previous efforts have been made to solve it?

These are the questions readers will be interested in. The ...
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What, exactly, is the nature of the conflict?

What are they fighting about?

How did the conflict start?

What previous efforts have been made to solve it?

These are the questions readers will be interested in. The only interesting thing this article says is the year the conflict started.

Everybody knows conflicts are not good so there's no need to remind us of the adverse effects of conflicts. We need more details about this particular conflict.
shark 7 years ago

the conflict is a bout a farming land
to which only two of the seven alavanyo villages have Access to.alavanyo consists of seven villages the majority of which have no idea where this parcel of land is located and have never ...
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the conflict is a bout a farming land
to which only two of the seven alavanyo villages have Access to.alavanyo consists of seven villages the majority of which have no idea where this parcel of land is located and have never set foot on this land.
the conflict erupts between the two alavanyo villages and about the same number of nkonya villages.it is therefore wrong to say alavanyos have conflicts with nkonya
Jasmine 7 years ago

THE FACTS OF THE CASE BETWEEN NKONYA AND ALAVANYO -- BY FELIX OHENE
R E J O I N D E R --- BY PAUL KWAMI DZATHOR
22ND MAY, 2013

Mr. Felix Ohene of Nkonya published a presentation on Ghana-web on 8th April 2013 under the a ...
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THE FACTS OF THE CASE BETWEEN NKONYA AND ALAVANYO -- BY FELIX OHENE
R E J O I N D E R --- BY PAUL KWAMI DZATHOR
22ND MAY, 2013

Mr. Felix Ohene of Nkonya published a presentation on Ghana-web on 8th April 2013 under the above-noted heading. Much that the people of Alavanyo have no desire to fight their cause on the altar of public opinion and propaganda, it has become necessary to react to Felix Ohene’s publication, since frequent repetition lends credibility to even the most blatant lie.

The claim in paragraph 1 of Felix Ohene’s publication to the effect that the people of Alavanyo settled on land allocated to them by Nkonya is a false and recent concoction. From time immemorial, no Nkonya person or persons, nor any Nkonya Chief, had ever claimed that Alavanyo was founded on Nkonya land. It is true that the people of Nkonya were in settlement where they are today before the arrival of the people who have subsequently become known as Alavanyo. Amega Kondodze of Nkonya Akloba, to whom the travellers were directed in the first place, was a personal friend of Togbe Tatse Koku, the then Chief of Kpando Tsakpe. The latter knew that Kondodze was not a Chief in Nkonya, and therefore had no capacity to grant part of Nkonya land to others for settlement.
Togbe Tatse Koku did not direct his emissaries and guests to any Nkonya Chief, appealing for the grant of land for settlement. His request was directed to Kondodze, asking him to direct the travellers to some uninhabited territory beyond the territorial boundaries of Nkonya, since it was known that there were uninhabited lands beyond Nkonya.

In those ancient times, land was not a problem, as extensive unoccupied lands were available for migrating parties to settle on, just as it was when the people of Nkonya migrated from their home in the Larteh area to settle where they are today. No authority granted them land because the place was then unoccupied. Kondodze, on the contrary, proposed to the travellers to settle with him, with the view that eventually they might become integrated into the Nkonya community. His kind offer was not accepted by the Alavanyo people, who insisted on founding an independent settlement. Kondodze in the end directed the travellers to the Logloto area, quite a distance from Nkonya, near the Volta River, an area beyond the territorial borders of Nkonya. The Logloto and the whole area are now under water as a result of the creation of the Volta Lake. Amega To and his party did not settle in the Logloto area for two reasons:
Firstly, the vegetation in the area did not appeal to them; secondly, the mighty Volta River was a deterrent, posing danger to safety of children.

Once out of sight of the benevolent Kondodze, Amega To and his people, who were then in transit, turned their back to the Volta and, on their own, explored the uninhabited areas around until they found a place they considered suitable to settle on. It must be remembered that when the Ewe dispersed from Notsie, the various groups founded their respective settlements on portions of the vast uninhabited land stretching from the Gulf of Guinea northwards. Although there were some isolated pockets of small earlier settlers here and there, none laid claim to land beyond their immediate needs. After Alavanyo was founded in the thick uninhabited forest, Kondodze visited them in their settlement and again tried to entice them back to Nkonya lands. His reason this time was that they had settled in a place they in Nkonya considered to be a dangerous belt he gave reasons to support his claim. Once again the offer was not accepted by the settlers.

This fact is well known to the people of Nkonya all along. So it is a strange falsehood for anyone to claim now that Alavanyo was founded on land allocated to them by Nkonya.

It must be recalled that Alavanyo and Nkonya started court litigation with a civil suit instituted by Paul Kodzo Anane and others of Nkonya Tayi against six (6) individual farmers of Alavanyo Kpeme. It was an allege case of encroachment on Nkonya lands, with the contention based on Dr. Grunner’s Map 1913. The court accepted the said map as genuine and reached a verdict in favour of the plaintiffs.
Subsequently, a surveyor, Henry Hagan, was appointed by the Court to demarcate a boundary between Nkonya and Alavanyo according to the Grunner. The entailing consequence of the surveyor’s work was that some thirty-eight (38) families in Alavanyo, whose land holdings were not originally perceived by the plaintiffs to be on Nkonya side of the Grunner boundary, were now clearly shown on the ground by the surveyor as being on Nkonya side of the boundary.
Did the surveyor make a mistake in tracing the Grunner boundary on the ground? Or is the Grunner Map 1913 of such a character that it cannot be accurately traced on the ground?

Certainly the very many Alavanyo families, who were not originally deemed by the people of Nkonya to be on Nkonya land, but who had suddenly faced the woeful prospect of losing their land holdings to Nkonya as a result of a court litigation that did not originally concern them, but have become affected by a surveyor’s work on the ground, found the situation not only difficult but also extremely untenable and unacceptable.
It must also be borne in mind that the lawsuit is a boundary dispute, alleging that certain persons from Alavanyo crossed the boundary between Nkonya and Alavanyo lands to make their farms on Nkonya side of the boundary. Now, certain very disgruntled people in Nkonya are so desperate to grasp more land, and as a result have become so confused, that they now claim there is no Alavanyo land in the area. They have cajoled their Paramount Chief into writing a letter dated 3rd January, 2013, addressed to the Mediation Committee on the Alavanyo/Nkonya, claiming that there is no Alavanyo land in the area. Notwithstanding circumstances predating the conflicts, this assertion is quite at variance with some oral pronouncements by the much respected Nana Okotor Kofi III, Paramount Chief of Nkonya, is known to have made on the Nkonya and Alavanyo problem.
Let us consider a few facts, namely:

(1) A law suit was initiated by Paul Kodzo Anane of Nkonya Tayi claiming that some individuals from Alavanyo crossed the boundary separating Nkonya land from Alavanyo land and thus trespassed onto Nkonya land.
(2) Dr. Grunner made a drawing in 1913 demarcating a boundary between Alavanyo and Nkonya lands.
(3) The Togo Plateau Forest Reserve Settlement Commission sitting at Hohoe in 1931 mentioned Alavanyo as one of the communities that possess land in the Forest Reserve.

With the outgoing it lacks logic, reason and comprehension how the people of Nkonya now contrive to assert that the people of Alavanyo possess no land in an area they have inhabited for centuries.
The more intriguing fact is that, the people of Nkonya suddenly appear amnesic about the fact that the centuries-old traditional boundary in that area of the disputed land was not at all laid with the people of Nkonya Tayi. That ancient boundary was jointly fixed by the ancestors of the present-day Alavanyo and the ancestors of present-day Nkonya Ntumda and Wurupong. That is, long before the people of Tayi, who originally were a clan in Nkonya Kpakplawusi, were forced by circumstances to flee their original home in Kpakplawusi (now called Asakyere) to seek a new settlement; they came to settle in their present home quite close to Alavanyo Kpeme.

It a widely-known fact that boundaries between peoples are marked by boundary trees called Anyati (in Ewe) and Ntombe (in Twi), and that such demarcations are always made jointly by the two communities sharing the boundary. The centuries-old line of Anyati/Ntombe marking the boundary between Nkonya and Alavanyo lands is still on the ground and can be viewed by anyone interested.

When the people of Nkonya Tayi came to settle thus close to Alavanyo, which was already in settlement before the arriving community, the traditional boundary separating Nkonya lands from Alavanyo lands was respected until the advent of cocoa, the cultivation of which, unlike food-crops, required much larger portions of land and occupied the land for many, many years. Tayi needed land in order to cope with the times.

The genesis of the Alavanyo/Nkonya problem

The people of Nkonya have been engaged in propaganda for a considerable time, most probably for the purpose of gaining public sympathy.
In paragraph 3 of Felix Ohene’s publication of 8th April 2013 on Ghanaweb, it is alleged that “In May, 1923, nine elders from Nkonya-Tayi were brutally assaulted by the Alavanyos when they went to Alavanyo Kpeme on a mission to discuss an observed encroachment on Nkonya land by eight Alavanyo farmers.........” Mr. Ohene conveniently omitted to state that it was a crowd of many people, holding machetes, clubs mallets etc., under the leadership of one Kwasi Addae of Nkonya Tayi, that invaded the Alavanyo Paramount Chief’s palace without prior notice on 24th May, 1923.
He omitted to state that the mission of Kwasi Addae and his group was to compel the Alavanyo Paramount Chief “Fiaga” to accompany them to the bush to demarcate a boundary that morning.
He omitted to say that the Chief and his Elders were in the palace that morning preparing to go to the durbar ground for celebration of Empire Day festival.
Mr. Ohene omitted to say that the Fiaga told Kwasi Addae that if there was any boundary problem he could only discuss it with his counterpart, the Paramount Chief of Nkonya, and not with him, Kwasi Addae.
Mr Ohene conveniently omitted to state that it was the irate and riotous behaviour of Kwasi Addae and his mob in the palace that culminated in one of them smashing and bruising the head of the Linguist of the Chief with a club the Tayi man brought from home. The unfortunate spate of events sparked the scuffle in the Alavanyo Palace that 24th day of May, 1923.
Felix Ohene omitted to state that following the incident, Kwasi Addae and some members of his riotous group from Nkonya -Tayi were tried and convicted on 1st June, 1923, at the District Commissioner’s Court at Kpando, presided over by His Worship S.D. Le Lievre, Esq.
Alex Ohene omitted to state that when Kwasi Addae was questioned in the Court as to why he had not referred the matter to his Paramount Chief in Nkonya prior to proceeding to Alavanyo, Kwasi Addae disclosed that he took a similar case to his Paramount Chief who pronounced him Kwasi Addae guilty, and that was why he did not want to go to him.

Felix Ohene stated in paragraph 2 of his publication and in reference to above that the Grunner Map showed “boundaries of the six nation-states that surrounded the Togo Plateau --- Nkonya, Alavanyo, Gbi, Santrokofi, Akpafu, and Bowiri respectively”. What then is the basis of the Nkonya Paramount Chief’s present allegation that Alavanyo has no land in the area?

Mr Felix Ohene’s claim in paragraph 4 of his publication to the effect that “In 1931, Norton Jones, Esq. met representatives of the six nation-states on the issue of the Togo Plateau Forest Reserve Settlement Enquiry where they all agreed that their boundaries were as shown on the Grunner map drawn in 1913”, is another hoax.
Before the Togo Plateau Forest Reserve Commission at Hohoe in 1931, the Paramount Chief of Alavanyo testified as the 7th Witness, and was cross-examined by the Gyasehene of Nkonya representing the Paramount Chief of Nkonya, and the Regent of Santrokofi. It was only the Regent of Santrokofi who suggested in cross-examination that Dr. Grunner had laid their boundary at SASATU Stream; but that suggestion was denied by the Paramount Chief of Alavanyo. Though one E.K. Amsa representing the Chief of Nkonya Wurupong testified as the 12th Witness, he did not allege that Dr. Grunner had demarcated any boundary between Nkonya and Alavanyo. There was no suggestion under cross-examination by other Nkonya representatives then that Dr. Grunner had demarcated any boundary between Alavanyo and Nkonya. There was no suggestion from Akpafu either that Dr. Grunner had demarcated our boundary. It cannot therefore be said, as Felix Ohene alleges, that “all agreed that their boundaries were as shown on the Grunner Map drawn in 1913”
It is indeed history that in 1959, Granville Sharp, J.A., in the Appeal Court upheld the decision of a lower Court in the civil boundary claim in favour of the claimants, Nkonya. Other Ghanaian Courts, and also the West African Court of Appeal, have later discredited the Grunner Map, saying:
“THEIR LORDSHIIPS NOTED THAT THE MAP IS ON A VERY SMALL SCALE; THAT IT IS, AND MUST IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES BE, DOUBTFUL WHETHER IT WAS INTENDED TO BE USED FOR THE PURPOSES FOR WHICH THE RESPONDENT SEEKS TO USE IT, VIZ., TO SET OUT ACCURATELY TRIBAL BOUNDARIES; AND THAT MOREOVER, IT HAS BEEN SHOWN TO CONTAIN INACCURACIES...
IN SHORT, THE MAP IS OF SUCH A CHARACTER THAT IT WOULD NOT BE SAFE TO DRAW AN INFERENCE FROM IT REGARDING TRIBAL BOUNDARIES NOW IN DISPUTE ... THEIR LORDSHIPS THINK THAT THE COURT OF APPEAL ATTACHED UNDUE IMPORTANCE TO THE MAP AND THAT THEIR LEGAL EFFECT HAS BEEN MUCH EXAGGERATED.” (Ref. W.A.C.A. 24 in A. Kponuglo and others versus A. Kodadja)

In civil Appeal No.10/83 dated 25th April, 1985, the Court, after reviewing the criticisms against the Grunner Map, said:
“IT SEEMS FROM THE REVIEW ABOVE THAT THE GRUNNER PLAN IS VULNERABLE TO THE SERIOUS CRITICISM OF UNRELIABILITY. IT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THE BASIS OF A DECISION”
All these point to the fact that the Grunner Map 1913 should not be used for the purpose of demarcating tribal boundaries on the ground. That means, where the map has been used, the Court decision is based on false premises. In such a case, should a Court verdict, which is discovered to have been based on the false assumption that the Grunner Map 1913 is accurate, be allowed to stand?

Alavanyo has often been blamed as aggressors against Nkonya because some blacksmiths in Alavanyo were capable of manufacturing guns. The people of Nkonya are not publicly known to manufacture guns. But do they not use guns in their fight against Alavanyo?
The alleged aggression of Alavanyo against Nkonya has been touted so loud and for so long that many well-meaning people have come to accept it as a fact. Those who would wish to independently examine the facts will agree that the first skirmish ever between Alavanyo and Nkonya took place in the house of the Alavanyo Paramount Chief at Kpeme on 24th May, 1923. Thereafter, there was a lull of fifty years, and the 1983 fighting started in Alavanyo Kpeme town, at dawn on May 4th, after Nkonya armies marched through the then curfew hours to attack the people of Kpeme, who were still in their rooms because of the dusk to dawn curfew.
In that incident the Nkonyas torched a few thatch houses and shot dead three persons in Alavanyo Kpeme town --- a Cocoa Marketing Board night watchman, an Escort Police Sergeant on night duty, both of these were non-natives of Alavanyo. The third person shot dead that morning was a citizen of Alavanyo who, upon hearing gun-shots near his house, ventured out of his room to investigate.
That was the start of the l983 war in which the people of Alavanyo Kpeme, aroused from their rooms, faced the Nkonya warriors who were subsequently chased into the nearby bush.
The Ghanaian Times newspaper the next day or so carried a comprehensive report on the incident and showed photographs of the burnt-down houses. Weeks later, a three-prong attack was launched by armies from Nkonya on Alavanyo Dzogbedze, Deme and Kpeme simultaneously, with the resultant loss of lives.
All subsequent skirmishes started in Alavanyo towns or close-by. Not once did a fighting between these two communities ever start in or near an Nkonya town. Wherein then lies Alavanyo’s aggression in these circumstances?
I must say that these hostilities, because of their frequent occurrence, and because they occur in or close to Alavanyo towns, have had, and continue to have, serious and adverse psychological effect on our children in Alavanyo. Our children seem to take them as normal and ordinary events, and whenever the alarm is raised now that Nkonya assailants are upon a town, even very young children, aged about seven years upwards, boys and girls, rush towards the place of action to witness the war, perhaps to cheer the home team, as happens in football matches. To these innocent children, fighting with arms is becoming a matter of fun. What will their future be?
I must emphasize that the peoples of Alavanyo are anxious for peaceful resolution of their border dispute with Nkonya. We have absolute faith in the Mediation Committee and its allies. Members of the Committee were jointly nominated by representatives of Nkonya and Alavanyo. However, we shall welcome assistance from any other individuals or institutions for peaceful resolution of this burden. But, individuals who know that they have already made up their minds on the issues of this conflict on account of the propaganda so often churned out, should acknowledge that their contribution would not be helpful.

PAUL KWAMI DZATHOR,
ALAVANYO
Jasmine 7 years ago

That answers Kweku above^^...

That answers Kweku above^^...
Kweku 7 years ago

Ok, it gives the version of one side but since it is a rejoinder to the other side, one can also go and read what the other side is saying.

But the end is gratifying. Both sides know they have to settle the matter peacefu ...
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Ok, it gives the version of one side but since it is a rejoinder to the other side, one can also go and read what the other side is saying.

But the end is gratifying. Both sides know they have to settle the matter peacefully. It won't be easy but it must be done.

When will we see an end to the Nkonya-Alavanyo feud?

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