Re: Anlo-Ewes voted against incorporation of Volta Region into Ghana in 1956

Ahoofe has outdone himself this time (https://www.modernghana.com/news/906385/anlo-ewes-voted-against-incorporation-of-volta-region-into-g.html)! Reading through this, I kept on laughing, remembering what I heard growing up in the early 1960s and why: Anlo women referring to homeboys who got PhD as "Kabideta" ("got-a-wound-in-the-head") with a pitch of distress in their voices, in order to distinguish them from medical doctors, "dokita", with much satisfaction. I doubt though if they’d be still be as much satisfied with the modern damn-the-Hippocratic-oath money swine, cash and carry versions of the latter. (Pardon my digression!) Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe is a prime example of a Kabideta! Phew! He is at times absolute bonkers, as on this occasion!

I am glad he has acknowledged that he is from Peki though, just like many of his cousins who see themselves as Ewes because their fathers did not marry an Akyem woman like his father did. By the way, his great, great grandfather was one of the Akyems who came with the Akyem General Dompeh to help the people of Weme and the indigenous people of the Oti enclave to fight the plundering Asantes led by Adu Boafo who came to support the Akwamus.

He was lucky to have survived and got married to one of the daughters of a Kwadwo Dei. Kwame's angst, animus and constant vitriol against "Anlo-Ewes" is rooted in the fact that some Anlo warlords and chiefs, by virtue of the fact that Anlo was allied to the aforementioned two predatory powers of pre-colonial Ghana - the so-called tripartite alliance that the Awoamefia impostor Patrick Agboba from Logba and his hirelings were renewing at the last Akawasidae to the chagrin of many right thinking Anlos - went to support the invaders against the advice of the ruling Awoamefia. What happened to them upon their return is part of the archival records. We shall return to them but let me put it on record that no knowledgeable and right thinking Anlo is proud of that dark chapter of our common history. That is why we Anlos do not boast, at least not so much and openly like some, about our “exploits”.

Those predatory incursions (on the Fantes too) eventually led to the Sagrenti War of 1874 which finally liberated those areas from the yoke of the predatory tripartite alliance and their local allies, some even fugitives like the Woraworas in the VR, who became a pestilence to the Ewes and indigenous people in the central and northern VR. Even the Krachi Guans, whose Krachiwura became a part of the predatory lot reneged and joined in the fight to chase the bloody lot out of the TVT which stretched up to Upper East Region. The Ewes of Weme provided the bulk of the men to fight the wars to liberate the area. Now some Guans have forgotten this history and have joined forces with the Akans to be insulting Ewes. I dare Kabideta Okoampa-Ahoofe to challenge this brief narrative.

There is so much factual errors and claims in his tirade I do not know where to start from correcting them. Let me say that the article he is using to respond to me is the third in a series published on modernghana.com; articles Ghanaweb has refused to publish. They actually lifted and posted the last from modernghana.com but when I commented on their refusal to publish the first two, which would have answered the many queries Kabideta Kwame also asked here, they removed it.

So, I had actually provided the answers to most of his questions in earlier articles on modernghana and others. Here are the links to three, beginning with how Ewes became part of the Gold Coast and then Ghana. Reading through shall expose him as hollow and bloody ignorant ignorant about the subject matter he poked his nose into.

https://www.modernghana.com/news/495224/how-some-ewes-became-part-of-present-ghana.html

Then the two articles preceding the one in contention.

https://www.modernghana.com/news/898650/the-brouhaha-about-the-creation-of-the-oti-region-part-1.html

The Part 2.

https://www.modernghana.com/news/898917/the-brouhaha-about-creation-of-the-oti-region-the-ethnic-im.html

Some queries shall remain a puzzle to him, since he is just a small fry in the equation of things. However, some of his blatant fabrications need to be corrected here, even though I had dealt with them in previous articles too. The Anlo area through Tongu to Peki was a part of the Gold Coast proper officially from 1876 even though the British "bought" the area from the Danes in 1850, 6 years after the Bond of 1844. Of course, the Anlos did not accept the terms of control, leading to the series of wars that ended around 1888. So the area was never part of the TVT and DID NOT take part in the plebiscite of 1956 preceding independence. But, Kabideta Kwame even have a record of how they voted, 4-1! Phew! The man has a fertile imagination! The area was represented in the Gold Coast Legislature (LegCo) by Torgbui Sri II (known in private life as Cornelius Kofi Kwawukume and no relation of the present impostor).

In recognition of his sterling qualities and for marshalling 15000 men to defeat the Germans in Togo and taking back the TVT area given by the British to the Germans in 1884, he got his first award, KMAC, and was coopted as the first unofficial member (chief) into the LegCo in 1915; followed a few months later by Nana Ofori Atta I. I know Kabideta Kwame will be peeved at this fact but the records are there to speak for themselves.

So, you see, we Anlos also fought and contributed to taking back the TVT, which includes the Oti enclave. That is why even Anlos have a special attachment to the area, being among the main persons handed the task of teaching English to the people of the TVT, etc. The Oti enclave is territory Ewes shedded blood to liberate. They therefore have a long historical link and emotional attachment to the area which the NPP regime of Akufo Addo has shown utter contempt for in the brazen way they handled the Oti Region creation. Whether anyone likes it or not, there shall be consequences, some unintended. I am just the messenger with the bad news but no one gonna get my head! I shall take my own time to analyse, predict and recount the drama as it unfolds, as a participant observer, of course.

This region creation thing as handled by the NPP administration was just an ethnocentric exercise, becoming ethnic gerrymandering, demarcating boundaries along ethnic boundaries. Those are the issues I raised and attacked in my three articles. I have no respect for people who indulge in ethnocentrism and do not display any respect to others’ sensitivities. After all, who born them too and what do they really know?

You Kabideta Kwame should be grateful to the Anlos for not supplying the boats the Asantes wanted in order to cross the Volta to mop up the fleeing Akyems when the Asantes under Asantehene Osei Kwame finally put the Akyems too on the run with their defeat in 1764. By now, you’d be lucky to be claiming kinship with Haitians and performing voodoo rites instead of constantly calling Anlos trokosis and claiming kinship with the Pekis! Welcome into the arena!

Andy C. Y. Kwawukume

London

cyandyk@ymail.com