GHANA: CHIEFTAINCY HEAT AT NANGODI

CHIEFTAINCY HEAT AT NANGODI

By Edward Adeti, Daily Dispatch Correspondent, Upper East, Ghana

* NANGODI 

At the mention of Nangodi, two things come to an average mind in a quick flash. Anyone with fair facts about this area is aware that Nangodi is gifted with inexhaustible mineral deposits as well as relative peace and intellectual messiahs who were born yesterday in red round huts and educated under baobab trees but who today expertly occupy fearsome heights, home and abroad.

It is the capital of Nabdam and the soul of the Nabdams. Nabdam, a highly regarded wing in the Talensi-Nabdam District of the Upper East Region, is almost a synonym of “Moses Asaga.” Moses Asaga is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Nabdam and he is not only one of the most educated Nabdams but also arguably the most famous politician to have ever come out from that area today. He has been the MP since 1992, the year that even the youngest of today’s eligible voters were not born.

Asaga is a household name, almost more popular across the various age groups than Coca Cola there. If the length of one’s education or one’s intellectual height were to reflect in one’s physical height, Asaga could have been a mobile skyscraper already. To say Asaga is much pronounced in Nabdam as President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) was a celebrated senator in Massachusetts (1953-1960) would not be an error. The song that children sing, he is the symbol of the NDC in Nabdam. Believe you me: he was the “President Rawlings” in Nabdam from 1992 to 2000. Even in NPP time from 2000 to 2008, he was the soothing political air that most Nabdams breathed. And today, he has changed from what he used to be called to the “President Mills” of Nabdam both in the eyes and on the lips of grownups and growing minds.

It came as no surprise when the notably eloquent Paramount Chief of Sakote, Naba Sigri Bewong, honoured only Asaga last year with a prestigious award that could be equated with say “The Nabdam Man of the Century”. He seems to have attained a political pinnacle where his worried and seemingly fatigued rivals can only hold their tired, dropping waists and watch him in near-surrender silence and in awe. It could be correct to imagine Boniface Gambila, Asaga’s quickest-remembered rival, after 11 years (since 2000) of fruitless parliamentary struggle and mirage still whispering a question to himself with a smile of uncertainty: “So, what at all, what else, can I use to floor this stump-short man?”

Asaga is only an intellectual giant in a portable body, you know. Literarily, he is a thick short stump of an odum tree that proves too difficult to shake and uproot from the parliamentary seat. Unless battle-weary Gambila resorts to a bulldozer if he can drive one, or “Nicodemusly” negotiate for the lawmaker’s seat with Asaga in the belly of the night behind the Nangodi hills, he might continue to fight a good fight of faith like Paul the Apostle till the sudden rapture.

Enough said about that for now. Regrettably, whilst that beautiful Nangodi community seems to be engaged in its every-day market and school activities at this hour, it has come to my notice that a sudden clash might plunge that settlement into total disarray any time soon. A fresh conflict has erupted within six royal families in this area. One royal family is saying that a new “chief”, who purportedly does not belong to any royal family tree, has been imposed on the people. But five royal families in the same area disagree with one voice, saying that the “chief” is a legitimate member of a royal family in Nangodi.

The picture of the new chieftaincy tussle has a political background with a portrait of Moses Asaga stained with an allegation that he has a hand in “imposing” his younger brother, the new “chief”, on the Nangodi realm. Asaga again. Almost every year now, since 2008, every matter, every controversy and every saga dwells on Ananse. In 2008, till the eve of the elections, it was “he beat his own wife”. In 2009, he was given a sack before his appointment, by President Mills. In 2010, GJA in the Upper East Region was on his neck as it renewed its demand for a replacement of a journalist’s camera that some of his supporters allegedly smashed up in his constituency in 2009. Now, in 2010, sorry 2011 I should say, they say the lawmaker has tiptoed back home to momentarily take up a kingmaker’s job in his younger brother’s favour. Nabdam Man of the Century? And what might 2012, too, hold for him?

In northern Ghana, chieftaincy sparks more clashes than any other source, especially when the parties involved are of the conviction that there are some deep-seated political interests somewhere. And when it does, the bloody harvest overwhelms the expertise of even award-winning peace crusaders and gurus behind any subsequent expensive recovery, reconciliation and relief processes. “Ashes” are only two letters after “Clashes”. Whenever there are clashes there will be ashes.

The echoes of the hurt survive beyond the gory picture of a war where you have a slain mother with a helpless weeping child by her side; the hungry child, unaware that his mother has been silenced by a bullet, sucks from a dead woman’s breasts moments later; and a few inches away from that spot are timid vultures, waiting impatiently for that child, too, to die just like his mother. Ghana cannot afford to nurture another hydra-headed monster of chieftaincy disagreement at Nangodi whilst the cost of the same clash at Bawku still leaves many mouths wide-opened everywhere. It is only wise to grab that baby monster with both hands now and squeeze the life out of it before it outgrows and devours the same community under whose watch it grew. Nangodi is known for minerals and books, not mayhem and bullets.

*THE HEAT

In the last week of April, this year, a group known as the “Azure’s Family” at Nangodi came out with naked fury to announce their outright rejection of “Chief Joseph Asaga”, a new chief enskinned for Nangodi by Naa Bohugu Mahami Abdulai, the Nayire or Overlord of the Mamprugu Traditional Area himself. The new chief is a younger brother to Moses Asaga and he seems to be under the protective shadow of the Nayire who commands incontestable integrity and reverence like the ancestral spirits.

The rejection by the Azures is prompted by two reasons. One, they claim that the new “chief” has no royal traces at all. For over two centuries, his families, they strongly say, have only been elders in the chiefdom. The second reason: the Azure family believes that Nayire was politically compelled to enskin the Asaga family.

They told newsmen in that April conference that “Nayire from the onset declared to us that we were the right people…The overwhelming police presence in Nalerigu was strange because never in the history of Nangodi’s enskinment had there ever been such a security presence. It was politically motivated from top political officials from the Northern and Upper East Regions.”

For the Azure family, Nangodi has no chief if “Chief Joseph Asaga” is the chief. In their heated protest, they, too, have “imposed” a ban on the “imposed” overlord. The “chief” has been issued a directive as to which no-go areas he must not tread in his regalia. According to them, he would be doing himself a fair favour by not crossing the drawn lines to the zone of wrath. It sounds like robbing a “ruler” of his “authority” and using the same power to order him around. Well, they did not end it there. They welcome President Mills’s quest for peace, describing him as a great leader, but still want him to keep a closer eye on officials and MPs who brew and fan troubles from the behind the scenes.

Whilst seeking assistance from the National House of Chiefs to unearth the correct history of the true royal ancestry of Nangodi, they are also reminding the National Democratic Congress (NDC) that Nangodi Central has been the decider for NDC’s victories since 1992. “Honourable Moses Asaga, therefore, should be called to order, or else…” they warn. Asaga inflicted his bitter old rival, Boniface Gambila of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), with a most painful narrow lead in 2008 by just 272 votes in a much-campaigned parliamentary election that handed 5,369 (47.8%) votes to Asaga against Gambila’s 5,097 (45.4%) ballots.

Despite the hurt they feel, the Azures say they appreciate the efforts of the Nayire. “We were his choice until pressure beyond him mounted from above. But as sons to him, this is our small advice: if he could give a second look at some of his corrupt elders like Akara, Zinea Dana, Bukpenaa and Sakpari, it will save his kingdom from future unexpected troubles,” they said in a statement.

The Azures have also indicated that they have the support of the Nabdam sub-chiefs, entreating them to keep up their loyalty until the issue is resolved. Concluding the conference, they charged the people of Nangodi to avoid causing trouble whilst demanding uncompromisingly that the right thing be done. 

*FIVE AGAINST ONE

There are five gates to the Nangodi skin, we are told. These are Zuutbiih, Biyambiih, Daayibiih, Issakabiih and Kpayabiih.  Between April 13 and 23, this year, six royal families from the five royal gates assembled at Nalerigu, in the Northern Region, for a chieftaincy contest. The contesting royal families included the Yidan Touh family, the Na-Tii family, the Issakabiih family, the Daayibiih family, the Yelzooya family and the agitated Azure family.

Now, after the Azures’ press conference, five of the royal families that went for the chieftaincy contest organised a quick counter press conference to say that the Azures’ claim was as an insult to the credibility and sound ruling of the Nayire. They asserted that “Chief Joseph Asaga” was from the Yelzooya family of the Zuutbiih Gate and it was out of the contesting families that he had been enskinned as Chief of Nangodi.

Yelzooya, Nabdams are aware, had ever sat on the Nangodi skin as a chief. Whilst the first chief of Nangodi was Zan, according to a history book entitled “The Tribes of the Ashanti Hinterland Vol.II” by Captain R.S. Rattray, Yelzooya was the eleventh chief of Nangodi. Captain R.S. Rattray was able to write about Nabdams through the history narrated by Naab Azure II, the fifteenth chief of Nangodi from the same Azure family. These five royal families who contested at Nalerigu and lost to the new “chief” at Nangodi are vehemently saying that a claim by the Azure family (their fellow contender) that “Chief Joseph Asaga”, whose great-great grandfather was Yelzooya, has no royal roots at Nangodi is an utterly baseless attempt to harm the reputation of the new “chief.”

“To say that his enskinment is politically motivated is mere speculation and they have no proof to that effect. The fact that the enskinned Chief is a brother to the Honourable Moses Asaga, MP for Nabdam and a member of the ruling NDC Government, does not mean that the Government interfered in the process. To think that the Nayire and his elders have been influenced politically shows your lack of confidence in the Traditional System of Governance which is insulated from political interference,” the five royal families insisted in a statement boldly read during that conference by Michael Zuri, Spokesperson to the five royal families and District Director of National Service Scheme (NSS) for Talensi-Nabdam.

They justified the presence of the Police in Nayire on the day of enskinment as a security measure to confront “threats and the character of violence of the Azure family.” The Nayire, they said, had to calm down tempers by calling in the police to ensure that there was enough security to see the occasion through to a glorious, logical end devoid of loss of lives and property.

*A STITCH IN TIME

The fact that the new “chief” has the all-important nod of the Nayire and an overwhelming support of the five “macho” royal families cannot rule out the possibility that the slim minority of the Azure family cannot spark a needless upset if they want to. Remember their warning to the new “chief”. One of the numerous African proverbs says that the sewing needle is not so tiny an object that a cock may easily swallow. Even a contemporary proverb tells us that it takes just a little spread-bound drop of oil to mar the acceptability of any amount of drinking water in a big earthen pot. This is where the security agencies must anticipate and act swiftly.

It does not take a PhD to anticipate unrest from chieftaincy dissatisfaction particularly in northern Ghana. As long as one section of a people is agitating for “something”, it cannot be said or feigned that all is well. A tired man who crawls into his grass bed with fire under the same bed is bound to wake up dead and gone with an ash-carrying wind. The disgruntlement at Nangodi calls for urgent attention and a once-and-for-all solution. Perhaps, there is something else behind and beyond the conflict that our limited human eyes can see between the royal families at war.

Fine, Moses Asaga also may have been exonerated by the support of the majority of the royal families, but we cannot afford laying the foundation of another imminent or distant “Bawku” at Nangodi. We know about the political parties that are yet to wash themselves clean of their mention in connection with the Bawku volatile circumstance.

It is the same political blocks and partisan concrete with which the solid foundation of the longstanding Bawku turmoil was laid even years before the birth of the newly recruited warriors and warmongers that we also want to seem to be carelessly using to lay another foundation of royal inferno at the mineral-adorned Nangodi. A clash is like a wild fire razing through this paper in your hand, leaving behind for the passing winds only weightless, useless ashes. No post-war recovery process truly recovers the lives and image that the needless war was allowed to take away and waste away.

Whilst chasing and shooing the hawk away, let us also warn the chicks not to stray. As we cherish peace and not war, let us also stitch the little tear at Nangodi here and now. Nangodi is too natural and beautiful to be associated with the dreadful “kusah-kusah! and boom-boom!” sounds of guns and a violent picture of running bare feet of displaced brilliant kids and responsible parents. Let’s do some preemptive intervention. I am humbly talking to all peace stakeholders including West Africa Network Peace Building (WANEP), Action Aid Ghana, other NGOs, conflict resolution and management experts, security agencies and law-abiding individuals. A stitch in time does not only save nine— it saves millions of lives and cedis as well!