THE CHIEF of Pokuase, Nii Oto Kwami III, his Gyase Tse (Kingmaker) and his elders and youth yesterday descended on the capital city, Accra, warning Nii Addotey Obuor and the Ga Traditional Council to sit up, and called on the security agencies to clamp down on the activities of chieftaincy contractors in the Ga state.

The chief was reacting, in a press conference held at the GNAT Teachers Hall, Accra, to media reports, posters and notices placed at vantage points in Pokuase to the effect that he, Nii Otu Kwami III, had been destooled, when in actual fact he still is the chief of Pokuase.

Branding the perpetrators of that act as troublemakers and subversionists, the chief stated that the press conference was intended to "expose to the general public a grand design by some self-styled persons within the Otublohum Traditional Area" to create mischief, confusion and disorder in their bid to "subvert the history, customs and traditions of the Otublohum Traditional Area."

He said recently the attention of the Otublohum Traditional Council was drawn to a front-page publication by a leading private paper, to the effect that a non-existent traditional council made up of people of no known royal lineage had suspended or sacked the Pokuase chief from office. Strangely, this act of confusion, according to the chief, was hatched and executed from Accra and not the Pokuase people.

He named one Alhaji S. K. Quartey and a certain Tawia Dodoo as the perpetrators of the act. In one instance in 1996, the same "Alhaji S. K. Quartey and his cronies, who are notoriously becoming mischief makers in our traditional area," again planned to outdoor one Gordon Tetteh as Pokuase chief paradoxically under a stool name Nii Amo Odiasempa.

He told reporters that had the police not intervened, there would have been bloodshed in Pokuase, because the youth had by that time gotten mad with the schemings of the two people.

Taking a swipe at the Ga Traditional Council, the chief noted that "this type of rabblerousing" was always timed to precede the annual Homowo festival.

They further told the paper that one of the troublemakers later owned up and apologized to the chief and elders, reconciling as well to the people after pacifying the stool with a ram and some bottles of schnapps.

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The chief noted that if the embarrassing cases of land disputes and chieftaincy palaver were to be brought to an end in the Ga state, then people like the said S. K. Quartey and Dodoo Nsaki ought to be tried and put behind bars.

Two weeks ago, the Nungua Wulomo warned the President of the Ga Traditional Council, Nii Addotey Obuor, over the Nungua chieftaincy palaver, accusing him of taking sides in the matter and using the traditional council to further his selfish interests.