The attempt at gazetting Francis Seth Lumorvi Nyonyo Atitsogui Agboada has been foiled, with the Venerated name Togbui Sri III expunged from the list of the Presidents of Traditional Councils in the Volta Region; a list meant for the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture. This was as a result of the recent Press Release issued by the Anlo Youth Council which exposed the perpetrators of the act, prompting the President of the Volta Regional House of Chiefs, Togbui Gabusu to act swiftly to avoid the embarrassment and the potential danger that action posed to the prevailing peace within the Anlo Traditional Area.

By this action of the Volta Regional House of Chiefs, Anlo Youth Council reiterates its call on Francis Seth Lumorvi Nyonyo Atitsogbui Agboada to stop holding himself out as Togbui Sri III of Anlo Traditional Area. The media is once again reminded that this is a masquerader whose inordinate fraudulent attempts at usurping the Awoamezi, the Supreme Paramount Stool is quashed by vigilant Anlos who cannot stoop low for any state manipulation and imposition of an undesirable individual on them. If the powers that be are so interested in seeing Nyonyo become a chief by hook or by crook, there are two options here: nobody stops them from creating a stool for him in their own traditional areas or seeing a carpenter to create a symbolic stool for him. For the Awoamezi of the Anlo is not for any state institution to aid Nyonyo to usurp. It is simply beyond his attainment.

The notice has been sufficiently served, but the council would want to restate for those recalcitrant press houses that there is no person in Anlo with the name or title Togbui Sri III. The continuous use of the Venerated title is an affront to our dignity, decency and common courtesy.

A critical look at the document in possession of Anlo Youth Council now has the President of the Anlo Traditional Council blank or vacant. However, the same document has several traditional councils with chiefs acting as President. Why would the Registrar, the President of the Volta Regional House of Chiefs and the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture want to designate Anlo as leaderless? The hierarchy of stools in the Anlo Traditional Area is well known and established. This is the Awoamefia, The Awadada, The Commaders of the Wings and so on. In that order of importance, the occupants of these stools take up leadership of the traditional council in the absence of the Supreme Awoamefia. The Awadada is, therefore, by our traditions, the defacto and dejury leader of the Anlo Traditional Council in the absence of Awoamefia, and those who matter in are aware of this.

In this Anlo Saga, the attitude and the posture of some institutions of state like the police, Municipal and Regional Authorities, and the Ministry of Interior baffled us tremendously. As if their acts of abandonment and sometimes outright complicity of the Government of Ghana in the brutalities and criminal murders and the resultant insecurity were not enough, the emerging perception of the judiciary, particularly the ones handling cases involving Lumorvi Atitsigbui in Keta and Ho could give orders and counter orders unfathomable to commonsense, is most bewildering to say the least.

Anlo Youth Council will like to reiterate, categorically that, ‘Justice delayed is indeed justice denied’. The needless adjournments behind the cloak of whatever the courts find justifiable at their liberty, are hurting terribly and may no longer be tolerated. When our people attend court, they expend their meager resources and time to support and advance our justice system. If the idea of these wanton adjournments is to deplete their resources and crush their will for them to surrender to state power, then we can assure the powers that be that our quest for justice will yield the appropriate results sooner than later. The judiciary may not only be waning the reverence, honour and the principle of unbiased dispensation of justice on the altar of political expediency, it is also sacrificing the moral principle of standing above reproach, which in our mind is the hallmark of jurisprudence. If justice is made very expensive by the very system and the institutions entrusted to serve it then wither goeth us? May we put it to Her Lordship, The Chief Justice, to take immediate steps to arrest a deteriorating situation before it gets out of hands.

For Nyonyo’s thugs who have now realized their foolhardy and sheepish actions in all this and have decided to approach Anlo Youth Council to facilitate a peace process for them to publicly renounce their actions and apologize to Anlos, we welcome them in the spirit of ‘Nugbuidodo’ (reconciliation) which we offered them at the burial of the Martyrs. Togbui Sri I had decreed that ‘Vi dze agla ne tro ko’, they must encourage all their gangs in this regard. The Council is also urging them to submit to due criminal proceedings of Ghana, where we shall stand ready to plead mercy and clemency on their behalf. After all, ‘Vi Menyea mi de atadzi ne fofoa wo tsoa he kpane o’. To wit, the baby’s soil on the father’s lap is not shaved with a knife, so our wisdom taught us.

Anlo Youth Council

President: Mayor Agbleze –0244-584835