Tragedy Of An Akan Paramount

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From Prince Osei Bonsu
Tradition was at display when on June 25th?2013 Professor Albert Owusu Sarpong swore allegiance to the people of Wenchi as their new Omanhene under the stool name Nana Anye Amanpong Tabrako II. Amid the display of rich Akan culture and tradition one notable exception was the absence of members of Sofoase Yefre royal family.
This is the question I put to the Akyeamehene of Wenchi traditional area Nana Dr. Damoah Koasane Adisi-Poku Fakobaye IV when I sat down with him on his return from Ghana following the installation of the new Omanhene.
After listening through this painful narrative of the tragedy of two families, I tiered up and completely agreed with him when he advised families going through such crisis to avoid using the court system to settle their differences however possible.
These were two royal families have at various times lived under one roof, they loved and adored each other greatly. Ask Nana Darkoaa Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia?s aunt who raised him and the rest of his siblings and she remembers Nana Kwame Attakora the son of her cousin Nana Aduofua of Ahenfi Yefri as the one who protected her children from bullies of Wenchi Township in their youth.
?The giant looking Kwame Attakora will stop by his aunt?s house everyday to check on his cousins oftentimes electing to pound fufu on their behalf so that his smallish looking Busia siblings will not suffer blisters on their palms. Those of us who grew up around their children saw the special bound and love that existed between these families.
Even at the height of their bitter family feud, children from Ahenfi Yefre would sneak out at night to study and party with their Sofoase Yefre cousins. I cannot recount the many blackmail gifts and favors I took from my cousin Mr. Kwame Attakora Gyan for not to tell on him that he was at Busia quarters partying the night out with Mr. Spencer Kwaku Kusi Appiah and his other siblings.
Nana Kusi Appiah?s children were frequent visitors at Attakora compound and never felt themselves as strangers nor unwelcomed at any time. You should have seen Mr. Obeng Gyan Busia and Mr. Kwadwo Wiafe Akenteng Busia the sons of Nana Kusi Appiah engaging in a healthy conversation with Nana Kwame Attakora and you will not believe that only a day after that encounter, Attakora and their father will be snaring at each other at the court.
?The partnership between the children of Ahenfi Yefri and Sofoase Yefri that sometimes bordered on sheer competition for academic excellence is the reason why Wenchi has such a high number of scholars for a town of its size in Ghana. So how did two families who seemed to care for each other deeply fall off out so tragically and drag the development of a whole town with it. POLITICS.
Education is the key that opens the door to opportunities in life and fortunately the British brought it to us in Ghana. But they also brought us competitive political party system of governance for our young democracy. If you think the present political bickering between NPP and NDC is tearing Ghana apart, wait until you talk to people who lived through the CPP and UP era.
?Nana Abrefa Mbore Bediatour IV was a man with a great sense of humor, one of the many jokes he made about himself when asked why he did not go to school was his first day in the classroom that turned out to be the last time of any formal education for him.
?Young Anthony Kofi Adomako (Nana Abrefa Mbore Bediatour IV) was enrolled to start school the same day as Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia. The two cousins sat next to each other in the classroom on their first day at school but before the teacher could finish introducing himself to the class, there was a palace linguists standing at the door, to excuse Kofi Adomakoh for the day.
An important traditional ceremony was about to commence and his uncle the chief insists that he should be present to witness it. That will be the last time of any formal education for this future chief of Wenchi. Even at such an early age, Nana Kofi Adomako was being groomed to become the chief of Wenchi one day.
?But his cousin Kofi Abrefa Busia stayed on and returned day after day to receive academic instructions from his teachers.??This man from Sofoase Yefri rose from a humble background to achieve such academic laurels that would be the talk of legends;
The first person of African descent to study at Oxford University; The first African to be conferred with a professorship at that citadel of academic excellence in Ghana; Legon. Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia became one of the only two Africans to be appointed to the British Colonial Service as District Commissioner a position reserved for a person with a white skin at the time.
?When Dr. Kofi Abrefa returned from studies in Oxford, his family and the small little town of Wenchi were ecstatic for this illustrious son who has put Wenchi on the map of Ghana. His achievement was not lost to his cousins from Ahenfi Yefri who together with the whole town began to wonder how they could honor this extraordinary achievement from one of their own.
?How about being conferred the chief of Wenchi, after all he was a royal. But there was a catch; Wenchi had a substantive chief in the person of Nana Kwame Abrefa (a.k.a Nana Kwame Yoguo) of Ahenfi Yefri.
?But such was the love that Ahenfi Yefri had for their cousin that they were willing to support the ouster of their uncle for Busia to be crowned the chief of Wenchi.
And that is what they did, in 1949 Nana Kwame Abrefa was asked to abdicate his thrown and the stool was offered to Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia. Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia accepted the offer but he had other interest lurking in mind that will not let him assume the position as the chief of Wenchi.
For Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia had a burning desire to run for national political office therefore accepting to become a traditional ruler did not either appeal to him or it could as well be unconstitutional. He therefore offered the stool to his younger brother Nana Kwame Kusi Appiah. ?Tofiakwa? come again thundered Ahenfi Yefri, give us back our stool they demanded.
?Nana Kwame Kusi Appiah was a royal alright but not in the circumstance where they have destooled their own uncle will Ahenfi Yefri elders sign off on a Nana Kwame Kusi Appiah nomination. But that was too late for preparation was well underway to present Nana Kwame Kusi Appiah before Otumfuo Prempeh I to swear allegiance before the Golden Stool as was the custom during the period of Ashanti Confederacy when the Ashanti monarchy held Bono as her vassal state.
?Seething with rage and betrayal, Ahenfi Yefri family will boycott the installation of Nana Kwame Kusi Appiah. They baited their time for the opportunity to destool him and take back their stool.
?Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia went into national politics alright but in the political contest between his UP and CPP, it was the latter that gained ascendency to usher Ghana into independence. Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia will have to contend with being the leader of opposition party in parliament.
The immediate period preceding independence and the decade after that was particularly perilous in Ghana?s history. The contest between CPP and UP was literally a fight between perceived real enemy combatants.
A traumatized nation could only watch on in dismay as CPP supporters were being chased out of communities where UP had majority.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah himself survived numerous assassination attempts on his life. In response he unleashed his attack dogs ?the valender Boys? against his enemies. Legislation was enacted to stifle opposition, Dr. JB Dankwah was thrown in jail, Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia fled into exile. Ghana will eventually be declared a one party state.
?The persecution against his political enemies got even more intense, chiefs who were perceived to be supporters of UP risk destoolment. With his brother out of the country and CPP government firmly in control, Nana Kusi Appiah?s detractors descended on him. Destoolment charges were brought against him and in 1958 he was destooled.
Fearing for his life and the possibility of political persecution, he fled into exile with his family to Lagos Nigeria. A son born while in exile still bears his famous Nigerian childhood nickname Mr. Olu Bame Busia. That same year, Nana Kofi Adomako was installed as the new chief of Wenchi under the stool name Nana Abrefa Mbore IV.
?The new chief quickly found himself embroiled in the heated Bono political struggle of the time. A group of Bono chiefs led by Techiman, Dormaa, Kukuom Abase and Domase have started agitations to break the Ashanti monarch?s stranglehold and or hegemony over Bono lands by advocating for secession from Ashanti Confederacy.
These chiefs became his prot?g?s as he fully embraced their struggle. Nana Abrefa Mbore Bediatour IV will become the first Bono chief to openly defy the tradition of swearing the oath of office before Asantehene. All the aforementioned chiefs had strong CPP credentials and the new Wenchi chief became their faithful disciple, he led his Ahenfi Yefri royal family to become staunch supporters of Convention Peoples Party.
?And with that, the destiny of these two families swung precipitously to the opposite ends of Ghana?s political divide; Busia and his Sofose Yefri became UP members while Abrefa Mbore Bediatuo IV and Ahenfi Yefri went for CPP.
?But Dr. Kwame Nkrumah?s government will not rule for ever, on 24th?February 1966 while on his way to bring peace to the warring factions in Vietnam, the peace that he has denied his own citizens will become his Waterloo. A group of soldiers led by General E. A. Kotoka besieged his flagstaff house residence and overthrew his CPP government.
The new military junta set out to pacify the nation of the excesses of Nkrumah?s rule. Chiefs who were thought to have been destooled because of their affiliation with UP party were asked to come and reclaim their stool. With the NLC Decree 112, Nana Abrefa Mbore Bediatuo IV was destooled and Nana Kwame Kusi Appiah became the chief of Wenchi for the second time. Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia returned from exile to win the first post Nkrumah era election and became the Prime Minister of Ghana in 1969.
?For a time, the position of Nana Kusi Appiah as the chief seemed unassailable but that was not for long. In 1972 Colonel Kuti Acheampong the man who led the security detail of Prime Minster Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia overthrew his government three years into his administration.
?When Colonel Acheampong proclaimed himself the Head of State and commissioner of Chieftaincy affairs, Nana Abrefa Mbore Bediatuo IV reemerged and appealed to the government to restore him back to his stool. Colonel Acheampong tasked the National House of Chiefs to work with the chief state Attorney Mr. A. E. A Aikins to establish the true claimants of Wenchi stool.
Thus began an excruciating process of probing the genealogy of the families, something that no one should wish even on their worst enemy. By the end of the trial, every myth that the two families have held about their blood relation over a millennium was broken
. Ahenfi Yefri and Sofoase Yefri will not see themselves as blood cousins again. The courts finally ruled that Ahenfi Yefri was the true legitimate claimants of the Wenchi Stool. A government issued white paper will permanently exclude Sofoase Yefri as royals in Wenchi.
The biggest victims of the bitter family feud were the hapless people of Wenchi who were left with the psychological trauma of divided loyalty. Nana Abrefa Mbore Bediatuo IV was reinstated in 1975 and continued his rule over a very divided town. He died in 2004. Nine years after the death of Nana Bediatuo IV, the Queenmother has nominated Professor Albert Owusu Sarpong as the next Omanhene of Wenchi.
?The people of Wenchi will want nothing from the new Chief than to bring peace and reconciliation between their feuding families. The two families have lived with this pain of separation for far too long, the time has come to bring an end this sad chapter of Wenchi history. For all the public show of antipathy toward each other, those of us who lived in Nana Kwame Attakora?s compound for example rather saw a very tormented old man.
?The fact that as the patriarch of Ahenfi Yefri he has presided over the estrangement of Ahenfi Yefri and Sofoase Yefri troubled the old man greatly. He would be heard murmuring to himself ?I will bring our families together before I die?.
?When Dr. Kofi Abrefa body was brought to Wenchi in 1978 for burial, Nana Abrafe Mbore Bediatuo IV then chief of Wenchi was prevented from attending the funeral but you should have seen a distraught chief at his palace. I was at his palace and saw Nana Abrefa Mbore Bediatuo cry like a baby over the death of his cousin, he had to be whisked away to his private quarters because chiefs are not supposed to cry in public.
?Mr. Nelson Mandela in one of his famous quotes about love said ?No one is born hating another person, people must learn to hate?.? Unfortunately for Ahenfi Yefri and Sofoase Yefri families, they dragged themselves before the courts and were aptly thought how to hate each another.
?Looking back at what the families have gone through over five decades, this is the time for somber reflection to give peace a chance. For the sake of this beautiful city on the hill and in the words of Rodney King ?can we all get along?. As painful as it was, we may not be able to change the past, but we sure can at least change our attitude toward it.
Thomas Kofi Kyeremeh
Germantown Maryland, USA
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