Celebrants of Awoba Kese advised to be sober

The Planning Committee of the Awoba Kese Festival of the chiefs and people of the Abeadze Traditional Area, has advised celebrants of this year’s festival to comport themselves during the celebration.

“Festivals are not only for merry-making and fun, there are used to re-unify the people to their families, others make friends, establish links that will benefit the community, take stock of the previous year’s activities, strategize to forge ahead to achieve what they could not achieve and a period of sober reflection”.

The planning committee therefore in this regard cautioned celebrants to be sober, even in their moments of estacy, and contribute their quota to the development of Abeadzeman

This was contained in a message delivered by Nana Bayin Hayford, Principal Coordinator of the Abeadze Awoba Kese Planning Committee in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at the residence of Daasebre Kwebu Ewusi the seventh, Paramount Chief of Abeadze Traditional Area at Dominase Abeadze.

He said the theme was: “Awoba Kese a vehicle for the social-economic development of Abeadzeman,” and that the Abeadze people were part of Borbor Fante who migrated from Mesopotamia with the other large Akan groupings, including the Wassas, Ashantis, Akyems, with their tradition of governance and culture.

He said history used to tell them just before the year AD. 13,000 there was a lot of disturbances in Mesopotamia area due to the expansion of Islam, so a lot of people started migrate from the area, of which the Akans who are now residing in part of southern Ghana and some part of Ivory Coast, came to settled first at Techiman.

According to the planning committee the migration continued from Techiman due to the same reasons that is, harassment, lack of space, water and rumours of wars so the Abeadze people moved further southwest together with the Akan grouping as mentioned earlier, to come and settle at Kwaman earlier known as Akanman.

He said when the Borbor Fante settled at Kwaman they again found out that the place was not conducive for them, and so the larger group migrated to settle at Mankessim, but the people of Abeadze under the leadership of Nana Teiwku Baah decided not to go to Mankessim, and along the way, they vowed to settle under a large palm tree, so people used to refer to them as settlers under palm trees (Abeadze) in the year 1350.

He said as history tells them after 50 years, under the leadership of Kwebu Ammisah, they decided to move from the old Abeadze due to lack of space, insufficient water for domestic and farming activities and fertile land for farming, and eventually they came to settle under a ‘Domin’ tree that gave the name of their current place of settlement called Dominase Abeadze after they empowered the people who were already settled there.

According to them, because Abeadze people moved with larger followers and they took over the governance of the area.

He said the festival started last Saturday and would be climaxed on Saturday, August 29 with Vic President, Paa Kwesi Ammisah Arthur as the guest speaker, and Wolugu Naaba, President of the National House of Chiefs, as chairman for the occasion.

He, therefore, urged tourists and visitors to join them to celebrate their colourful Awoba Kese Festival which is celebrated by all the Borbor Fantes to commemorate the deeds of one Opanyin Awoba who was sacrificed to stem the outbreak of a disease when they first settled at Mankessim.