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Opinions of Friday, 19 September 2003

Columnist: GNA

The Ripples of Dagbon

A GNA News Feature By Samuel Osei-Frempong


Accra, Sept. 18, GNA - Parliament bustled with life and brotherhood as the Minority walked in elegantly to fill the seats they vacated last month.

Their colleagues in the Majority had long booked their places buoyed by the ripples of the Dagbon crises, which had engulfed the Chamber of the People's Assembly.

It has been well over a year when a tale with many sides was told about the macabre return of a king to eternity.

The cycle of requests for extension of the State of Emergency in the Dagbon Traditional Area had made these Members of Parliament busier on days on which they are supposed to inspect their political snares for a game.

The recall was to grant the government's request to extend the state of emergency in the land of the Great One, who sits on the skin of the lion, Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II.

The long period of waiting and jaw jawing had ensnared the group that must have it way and the group that must have its say. An antique edifice called Gbewaa Palace with its mystery had been mysteriously assailed and its trappings consumed in an inferno that ended with the loss of other 29 souls.

The strands of the tragicomedy have been woven into the fabric of Ghana's national life. A mystery interpreted with mystery. It is a case of two brothers that have had a bad dream with each seeking solace and interpretations in any house known to host a soothsayer.

But none of these soothsayers would do the interpretations without being labelled as "for me or against me".

So all known faces of Parliament made it to the hall of debate attending to a national duty.

The throbbing of the drums of the fratricidal war has to be stopped, the wailing of women need not to be heard.

Mr Peter Ala Adjetey, Speaker, did not moderate with his usual strong handedness. He had been swept along in this big sea of mystery and sadness that has been rippling through the land.

Tales of molestation, fear of death that made the rounds had subsided in the corridors and chambers of the House but many still wondered when Dagbon would cease to be associated with anarchy in the media.

Imageries of soldiers soaked in their own sweat with their leather boots trampling, subduing and flattening the blades of the savannah grass of Dagbon was clearer than ever.

A relief may be looming nearby as four districts get their curfew hours scraped at least for now.

The land where crickets make piercing sounds at night, the land where the elderly tell sacred folklore during moonlit nights has suddenly become the land of hermits.