Asantehene to honour Annan

KUMASI, Ghana: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will be honoured today, Friday, at a grand ceremony hosted by the Asantehene (King of Ashantis), one of Ghana's senior most traditional rulers who wields enormous political and social clout.

Annan, who is currently on a private holiday in his native country, will be the guest of honour at a special "durbar" or levee in the Ashanti capital Kumasi, located about 170 kilometres (105 miles) northwest of Accra. The Ashanti king very rarely bestows such an honour.

King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, who was enthroned in April 1999, inherits powers which extend beyond the borders of the modern Ghanaian republic as well as wealth based on Ghana's gold mines.

President John Kufuor, who is related to the Ashanti royal family, will also be present at the ceremony.

Owusu Boateng, a secretary at the Ashanti king's palace in the central town of Kumasi, told AFP: "The honour is being conferred on Kofi Annan by the ashantihene (king) and the ashantiman (the Ashanti people).

"If the world has honoured him with the Nobel Peace Prize why not his native land?" he said.

Nana Owusu Asanti, a young street vendor in Kumasi added: "I am happy that Kofi Annan is being honoured for his achievements as a Ghanaian and an African and also for being able to control the world."

Friday's ceremony will be replete with pomp and tradition. The durbar will be held in the forecourt of the king's palace in Kumasi.

The king will sport kente, a colorful woven cloth, and chunky gold jewellery from head to foot -- down to his sandals which are studded with gold decorations.

The forecourt of the Manhyia palace (which translates as the meeting place of the Ashanti nation) is about the size of a football pitch. The surrounding British colonial-style buildings in the sprawling complex have red tiled roofs and long arched verandahs.

The palace, built in 1924, is the most sacred spot for Ashantis, who currently account for about five million of Ghana's estimated 19 million population.

Although Annan is from the Fante ethnic race, his father served as a minister of the Ashanti region under a previous government.

Palace official Boateng said it was still unclear if the Golden Stool, the Ashantis' most revered object, would be brought out for Friday's durbar. It was last put on public view during the present king's coronation.

King Osei Tutu, the founder of the Ashanti Kingdom, had ordered his presonal magician Komfo Anokye to conjure up the Golden Stool, the veritable "soul" of the Ashanti empire, from the sky.

Osei Tutu in the late 1600s created a flourishing administrative structure that allowed him to rule over newly conquered vassal states.

By the nineteenth century, the Ashanti kingdom had developed into a powerful empire that covered most of present-day Ghana and extended as far north as Mali and Mauritania.

Before Ghana's independence in 1957, the Ashantis had fought nine wars with the British, only losing the last -- the 1900 war which was led by Queen Yaa Asantewaa.