Opinions of Tuesday, 23 April 2024

Columnist: Leo Nelson

All you need to know about Western Togoland freedom

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Questions and Answers (Q&A)

You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. John 8:32

A people who don't know their history are a lost generation.

The Q&A below is to help you, who have little or no knowledge about Western Togoland(WTL), fill that gap, and empower, especially its citizens, to resolve to take over and run their own country with confidence.

1. What is Western Togoland?

ANSWER: The former names are:

United Nations (UN) Trust Territory of Togoland West, UN Trust Territory under British Administration(aka British Togoland)., after the 1946 Trusteeship Agreement UN signed with Britain as a Caretaker of its Trust Territory

Note: The brief history: Germans signed a friendship and trade agreement with the Chief of Torgoland Mlapa III in 1884. In writing the agreement the Germans mistakenly left out the "r", resulting in the name Togoland to date. The Germans started rapid development of the nation, to the envy of the British who were colonizing the Gold Coast(today Ghana) with little development for them, and similarly for the French who were colonizing Dahomey(today Benin).

During the first 1914 European Tribal War(which they fraudulently called the First World War to date), the British and French mobilized colonial forces to drive away the Germans in August 1914 and divided the nation in 1916 between...East and West Togoland. This was despite the fact that Africa was not involved in their tribal war. The French took the East and the British the West.

In 1919, the then World Body, the League of Nations, (the League) classified all territories taken from Germany after the war, and the Togolands fell in the category of Class B Mandate Status. It signed agreements with Britain and France to nurture them to independence and prevented them from integrating them into their colonies, as well from exploiting their natural resources.

But they did nothing to bring them to independence status before their second Tribal War in 1939, which again they fraudulently called the Second World War to date. At the end of that war, the League of Nations changed into the United Nations, which assumed responsibilities for all the territories under the League. The Togolands were upgraded to a nation status.

All territories similarly upgraded were called trust territories. All they needed to have to be independent were modern governance structures. Different countries were engaged by the UN through agreements, to make that happen. The same prohibitions were imposed on them by the UN. For the Togolands, these countries were Britain and France. The Agreement with Britain for the Togoland West Trust Territory was signed in December 1946.

When Gold Coast was getting close to independence Britain tried very hard to get the UN to integrate its Trust Territory into her Gold Coast. The UN rejected it, and voted for a political union in Resolution 944(X) of December 15, 1955, and gave the natives of West Togo, the opportunity to decide on their political future(UN Resolution 944 of December 15, 1955.

On the 9th May 1956 plebiscite, they voted only 58% to form a POLITICAL UNION (or a federation) with the Gold Coast at its independence. The UN, mandated Britain, through its 13 December 1956 Resolution 1044(XI), to implement that at Gold Coast's independence and inform them. Even though Britain failed to do that she fraudulently made the UN believe she did, resulting in the termination of the Trusteeship Agreement with her.

This left the territory as an orphan state, which Nkrumah, with the collaboration of Britain, took advantage of and integrated it by brute FORCE into Ghana to date.

Meanwhile, in 1955 and July 1956, both the Gold Coast's parliamentary committee and national election-cum-referendum respectively, rejected the of Gold Coast becoming a federal( hence a UNION) state at independence. This effectively canceled the UNION vote decision of May 9, 1956, of the UN's Togoland West Trust Territory(or British Togoland). That was one of the reasons Britain did not implement the UN mandate of granting WTL freedom to form a POLITICAL UNION with its Gold Coast at its independence.

2. Why did the UN not intervene on behalf of the citizens to protect them from FORCED integration into Ghana?

ANSWER: The UN relied heavily on the British reports, hence did not do proper due diligence to verify the facts. And in those days travel and communication were not easy. The citizens did not know that Britain deceived the UN concerning implementation of their UNION with Ghana. Many ignorantly thought just the mere YES vote to a UNION with Gold Coast at its independence automatically made the two nations a UNION STATE. They did not know there were to be obligatory legal processes to follow.

3. What is the current status of Western Togoland?

ANSWER: It remains a UN Trust Territory. That was its political status before the UN made Britain its Caretaker. The moment the Caretaker/Trusteeship Agreement was fraudulently caused by Britain to be ended, it automatically defaulted to its original status, without any Caretaker Administrator to date. So Ghana's Nkrumah armed and robbed a UN Trust Territory without its knowledge because Britain covered him up at the UN.

Furthermore, access to the UN was not as easy then as now. So Nkrumah's brutal massacre of our ancestors who resisted the FORCED integration of their nation into Ghana, might have been considered as crushing a small revolt against an official political union. But neither the UN's approved independence of WTL (a condition necessary for the union) nor its request for a union, was implemented by Britain.

There has been no union agreement or union constitution to date. Both are obligatory requirements for a lawful and legal political union. So the final objective of the UN Trust Territories as captured in Article 76 B of the UN Trusteeship Charter, had not been achieved for WTL to date. That objective is for each Trust Territory to attain independence and be in a lawful UNION with another independent State or an independent sovereign nation on its own.

4. Why then did the UN not to take back its Trust Territory from Ghana?

ANSWER: It took a very long time for the UN to realize that it had been defrauded and misled by Britain. When some of the indigenes who have been involved in its Freedom Fighting brought this to its attention and requested its support, they were told to get UN member nation to sponsor their case before the UN General Assembly.

5. Why has the UN not intervened in the arrests, detentions, and torture by Ghana of the indigenes of its Trust Territory seeking their inalienable right to break free from Ghana's lawless and illegal occupation?

ANSWER: The UN had severally asked Ghana to desist from its unlawful behaviours towards the Freedom Fighters of its Trust Territory and to free those in its detention, but Ghana was recalcitrant(obstinately uncooperative) towards the UN each time to date.

6. What must it take for Ghana to stop its lawless and illegal occupation and exploitation of WTL resources?

ANSWER: It is often said that when persuasion fails, force must apply. And it is the same situation for every independent struggle including Gold Coast's own. Strangely that colony emerged from over 100 years of colonization to immediately colonize a fellow Black Nation whose UN-mandated independence had been foiled by its colonial boss Britain.

One must ask if colonization was that great, why did they fight to be free? And why are they fighting the Trust Territory's indigenes who also want the same freedom from their colonization? In the end, she must choose between a violently bloody and destructive Freedom Fighting and Peaceful negotiation for separation. It's their choice. Ghana must remember that Nigeria has more weapon power than her, yet has been struggling for decades to cope with Boko Haram. Nor did four World Powers combined with Nigeria able to get rid of them.

7. Can WTL sustain itself as an independent nation?

ANSWER: Absolutely. Apart from its hardworking, disciplined, and well-educated human resources, it is blessed with an abundance of commercial quantities of natural resources such as gold, diamond, natural gas, crude oil, iron ore, lithium, uranium, mercury, bauxite, different types of industrial clay for ceramics, cement, and bricks, just to mention a few.

These are in addition to its rich waters, forests, and agricultural lands. Some countries lack these but are today among the wealthiest in the world. They depend primarily on the importation of raw materials, while others like the Gambia depend on one-source agricultural products and tourism.

8. What do you say to the Southern part of WTL that claims they are Gold Coasters, hence Ghanaians, and not part of WTL?

ANSWER: Well, we must allow evidence to demand its verdict. Some of these claims are based on ignorance, and others on one-sided documentation.
Our WTL ancestors settled on these lands long before there was anything like the Gold Coast. Britain tried through wars to expand its Gold Coast eastward to our lands but our ancestors successfully resisted it.

Some of these wars were bloody with losses of many lives on either side, but still it could not achieve its aim. Eventually, it resorted to trickery by inviting some of their chiefs to the Gold Coast governing Council, which made their heads swollen to be at the same decision-making table as the colonizers; then she bought the Danish Trade/Slave post(castle) at Keta and claimed to sign the Dzelukofe Trade and Amity Agreement in 1867, aimed at giving her free passage within our territories without fightings.

But you will not see any Anlo Chief's signature or thumbprint on that paper, only names. But that agreement did not even last past two years, for in 1869, the Agortime-Kpetoe war broke out between Britain and its allies on the one hand, and Anlos and their Eʋe allies on the other, at the instance of Britain.

There was no winner in that war, which lasted for some 3 years! It must also be made clear that buying a piece of real estate in a community or country does not make one a ruler or governor of that community or nation. There are thousands of foreigners who own properties in other countries without being their citizens.

Then during the German governance of the nation, a German royals allegedly carved out a section of the Southern portion to be reserved as a taxation base for his British grandmother Queen Victoria, as her birthday gift, without the knowledge and approval of the custodians of the land! And from that time on those areas had been referred to, and treated fraudulently as part of the Gold Coast.

And if today the generations of those ancestors are dancing happily to that and don't feel anger towards, and insult from the perpetrator of that odious abuse and theft, then it is very unfortunate.

At any rate, Britain gave up on that section of the land, called the Volta Triangle, in 1952, and joined the South, Central, and North together as one entity named Trans Volta Togoland(TVT). When she in 1954 was clandestinely planning to integrate TVT into her Gold Coast at independence on the blind side of the UN(which she did in collaboration with Nkrumah, as we saw earlier), she did not exclude the Southern part as belonging to her Gold Coast.

The plan included all the Southern through Central to the Northern sections. Look up their "Most Secret" document, a cabinet document detailing the plan. It has been shared severally on social media platforms as well as with many WTL indigenes. You can also request a copy through the email at the end of this document. Besides, the German boundary demarcation sites with the Gold Coast have recently been traced all the way to the North, and includes ALL of the Southern portion.

9. What are the true boundaries of Western Togoland?

ANSWER: The true original western boundary with the Gold Coast/Ghana had been changed by both Britain and Ghana severally. Fortunately, the original German boundary demarcation marks are intact, with detailed documentation. The tracing has been done recently and this was used to draw the true map of WTL. This will be made available at the right time.

We are not concerned about our eastern boundary with our brothers and sisters in the Togo Republic. Who knew East and West Berlin could have been re-united several decades after their split? However, Western Togoland will gain independence as a sovereign solitary nation.

10. So what is the way forward now for WTL freedom?

Currently there are efforts at uniting all the at least 10 Freedom Fighting Groups as well as mobilizing our Traditional Authorities(TA) and Key Opinion Leaders(KOL) for the independence agenda; 8 out of 10 Groups have been united so far. UNITED WE STAND.

*NOTE:* This information has been prepared to serve as a refresher to those who have had some exposure to WTL history, as well as to educate those with little or no knowledge. What then should you do with this knowledge? Knowledge gives you the power of decision-making but understanding translates that into victory. So the reader is encouraged to read this until he/she fully understands it. With this, nobody will ever be able to deceive and misguide and intimidate you. You will be in the driver's seat controlling every discussion concerning WTL.

It is expected that the one who attains both this knowledge and understanding will at least:

1. Fully support WTL's decolonization/freedom from Ghana agenda.

2. Will desire to hold accountable all those who have betrayed WTL and continue in their traitorous behavior with the collaboration with Ghana's lawlessness and illegalities against WTL and its citizens, for their greedy and selfish interests. These include all those that Gold Coast and Ghana allowed since the 1950s to illegally fraudulently and unconstitutionally participate in its politics while being non-Gold Coast/Ghanaian citizens. Ghanaian citizenship was illegally imposed on Western Togolanders by Nkrumah for self-serving reasons.

3. Be able to see those who oppose WTL's just and rightful decolonization from Ghana as enemies of their nation.

4. Intelligently and courageously challenge those who engage in DISINFORMATION and MISINFORMATION propaganda against Western Togoland.

5. Will be ASSERTIVE in his/her desire to see WTL fully separated from Ghana
6. Will make all efforts to share this information far and wide to others within and outside Western Togoland