Rejoinder – Stop interfering in chieftaincy matters in Buem …Bodada kingmakers to politicians

I write this Rejoinder to the above story as published on page 11 of the Thursday, September 26, 2024 edition of your esteemed paper “The Gha­naian Times”.

Buem is one of the oldest districts in the erstwhile Volta Region, now the first district after Hohoe in the Oti Region. The Germans developed Jasikan as the Buem administrative capital, a few kilometres outside the tradi­tional capital, Bodada.

The Paramount Chief of Buem, Nana Aburam Akpandja IV, died in 2017 and was finally buried in 2019. As is consistent with most Akan communities, several claimants arose and a group of kingmakers hurriedly installed a certain Eric Ofori as the next Buemhene.

Pandemonium broke out in Buem only days after the instal­lation. Word went round that the new king was a Togolese nation­al, he was not an indigene and he does not hail from any of the two Royal Gates of Buem patri­lineally – Opamoa and Onayoa.

Two separate committees of enquiry were set up and they all reported, independently elaborate and copiously that Eric Ofori, a chartered accountant was not a fit and proper person to be installed Buemhene.

Accordingly at a big public ceremony, rituals were performed and the installation was nullified with slaughtering of rams. A planned courtesy call at Jubilee House was cancelled and all those who matter in officialdom in Ghana notified accordingly.

Eric Ofori felt very betrayed because there is no doubt that he is a sincere backbone of NPP in Buem all these years, yet the NPP could not come to his aid.

Petitions and High Court writs flew left right centre and as at today there are at least FIVE Court cases involving Buem Paramountcy in the courts.

And this is where we bring in, as Nkrabeah and Associates, an Accra-based firm of lawyers, act­ing for the newly installed Buem­hene, Nana Aburam Akpandja V, a 30 something year-old Kelvin Kennedy Osahene, graduate from Accra Technical University.

To make matters more interest­ing, a certain Nana John, son of a former destooled Buem King, Nana Aburam Akpandja III, has maneuvered to get himself in­stalled by a beneficiary faction of family elders and it is their leader, Benjamin Adjei, Head of Family, who addressed the press confer­ence, reported in your esteemed paper.

Nkrabeah Effah-Dartey is a well-known politician in Ghana, from the NPP stock, but he is not in Buem for politics, but purely as a lawyer for one of the three claimants to the stool.

The current MP for Buem, an NDC man, has NEVER said a word about the groups in Buem, and the diminutive attractive fe­male MCE for Buem is so scared of her position that her office is a NO GO area for the three claimants.

Which politician then is interfering in Buem chieftaincy matters?

The only solution to the con­fusion in Buem is that LET THE LAW WORK.

Let the High Court in Hohoe and Ho give their decisions, and any party aggrieved can go on appeal to the Court of Appeal. Let the Judicial Committee of Oti Regional House of Chiefs give their decisions, and any aggrieved party can go to the National House of Chiefs in Kumasi.

The only panacea for peace in Buem is THE LAW. Let the law work. Let the rightful claimant be declared by the law for peace to prevail.

Interesting enough, all these claimants carry the same name NANA ABURAM AKPANDJA V.

(Signed)

NANA OTU APREM

Okadjakrom