...the Police-cum-Military Brutalities Inflicted on the Citizens of Kumawu-Bodomase


The silence of the government over the police-cum-military brutalities inflicted on the innocent citizens of Kumawu-Bodomase on Thursday, 16 February 2017, is a great cause for concern. The public will bear me witness that armed police and military personnel descended on Kumawu-Bodomase on Wednesday, 15 February 2017, on pretext of going to protect the mourners and the citizens of the town in the wake of laying in state, and the burial, and the final funeral celebrations, of, the late Kumawu Akyempemhene Nana Okyere Krapa II.



However, on Thursday, 16 February 2017, when the famous and popular Kumawuhene Barima Tweneboa Kodua V and his sub-chiefs with their large retinue of mourners were in a procession to the funeral ground where their deceased colleague was laid in state to perform their traditional rites of adieu oaths, they were physically attacked by the police and the military personnel.


Barima Tweneboa Kodua V and his elders had done nothing provocative to warrant the assault on them by the government police and military personnel using various types of weapons as if they were fighting terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen or Syria. They fired live ammunitions, rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowd and into the air.


It is alleged that the Divisional Police Commander in Ashanti Effiduase ordered the armed police and military personnel to shoot and kill Barima Tweneboa Kodua V claiming his instruction for his execution to be an order from above.


In my fruitless attempts so far made to establish the identity of that unknown person issuing that so-called order from above, I have decided to escalate the matter to the Amnesty International because it is very preposterous on the part of anyone to order the execution of an innocent paramount chief who is supported by about 95% of the Kumawuman subjects, and who as law-abiding as he is, is using the courts to fight for his rightful heritage.


We voted for then presidential-candidate Nana Akufo Addo and New Patriotic Party (NPP) for a change for the better from the lawlessness, injustices, practice of selective justice, abuse of power by our leaders and the ruinous acts of corruption that had become the prevailing, but tormenting order of the day under then President John Dramani Mahama and his government and his ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) party.


Should I say little did we know that there was still going to be the tendency to perpetrate acts of injustices by some members and Ministers of the NPP government? If it was not so, who then issued that absurd order from above to the soldiers and the police to proceed to Kumawu-Bodomase with intent to shoot and kill Kumawuhene Barima Tweneboa Kodua V?


For the information of the public, the late Kumawu Akyempemhene Nana Okyere Krapa II was a sub-chief owing allegiance to Barima Tweneboa Kodua V but not to the fraudulently enstooled Kumawuhene Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua. Additionally, he was a father to Barima Tweneboa Kodua V by extension of the Ashanti/Akan’s traditional extended family. Therefore, “Kumawuhene” Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua who had dubiously acted in collusion with Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II to depose Nana Okyere Krapa II only to have the Mampong High Court rubbish their unconventional and unconstitutional methods used to depose him, was in no way invited to, or going to, attend, Nana Okeyere Krapa II’s funeral. He was a persona non grata, as far as the funeral celebrations go!


The late Kumawu Akyempemhene Nana Okyere Krapa II and his other three colleague sub-chiefs, Kumawu Akwamuhene Nana Kwasi Bafo II, Kumawu Aduanahene Nana Sarfo Agyekum Nyanor II and Kumawu Nsumankwaahene Nana Okyere Darko were confirmed by the Mampong High Court judge as still sub-chiefs who could not, and have not, been destooled by the bogus methods used by Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II and the alleged Kumawuhene Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua who in private life is Dr Yaw Sarfo.


How then could some heavily armed police-cum-military personnel proceed to Kumawu-Bodomase pretending to protect the people of the town and the visiting mourners only to assault them with intent to kill Barima Tweneboa Kodua V?


Kumawuhemaa Nana Abenaa Serwaah Amponsah who has allegedly been visiting some Ministers of the current NPP government lying to them to court their support to unleash her evilness on Barima Tweneboa Kodua V is a top NDC member who even cooked and supplied food to the NDC polling agents in the Kumawu and Afram Plains Constituencies during the recent past 7 December 2016 elections.


I do not care the party she or anyone belongs to. Once an election is over, I see everyone as a Ghanaian who is to be treated equally and fairly. Nonetheless, I find it shocking that some NPP Government Ministers are supportive of her evil plans to cause harm to some innocent people in Kumawuman as unfolded on Thursday, 16 February 2017 at Kumawu-Bodomase.


In the course of time, I shall name those people she has visited and what some of them said. We did not spend our time, money, and efforts to campaign and vote for NPP to come to power only to have the usual nonsensical Ghanaian tendency to perpetrate abhorrent injustices resurface soon afterwards.


Who ordered the armed police-cum-military personnel to go to Kumawu-Bodomase not only to disrupt the late Nana Okyere Krapa II’s funeral but also, to assault the people with intent to kill Kumawuhene Barima Tweneboa Kodua V?


Is it the duty of the police and the military to involve themselves in chieftaincy disputes by taking sides? The transferred Ashanti Regional Police Public Relations Officer ASP Yusuf Mohammed Tanko said on air and in the newspapers that the police acted on intelligence to proceed to Kumawu-Bodomase to forcibly stop Kumawuhene Barima Tweneboa Kodua V from attending the funeral in the capacity of Kumawu Omanhene to avert clashes between his supporters and those of Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua? To him, there is only one paramount chief in Kumawu according to their police records.


I find his explanation very unprofessional and biased. Is it the duty of the police to enforce such chieftaincy issues without any court warrant or orders? The less I talk about it much the better because my emotions may compel me to rain insults on the security agents and those ministers who might have had a hand in that near-fatal assault on the good citizens of the town.


The criminal action by the police-cum-military personnel as unleashed on the people made most of the mourners not to attend the funeral on Saturday, 18 February 2017 hence the bereaved family incurring a huge debt of GHS30, 000. Who is going to pay for this debt? If the police and the soldiers had not acted in the stupid way that they did, the mourners would have attended in their greater numbers to make donations as it is required by our Akan tradition to offset or reduce the cost of the funeral.


Are there not two paramount chiefs currently in Accra in the Greater Accra region, Tuoabodom in the Brong-Ahafo region, Suhyen in the Eastern region and Bimbilla in the Northern region? Have the police been molesting any of them? If their answer is in the negative, then why only in Kumawu that they feel they should come to terrorise a rival chief who indeed has nearly the entire public support?


For your information, Asantehene is not the overlord of Asanteman with the powers he is presumed to possess. I have written about this and I shall in the coming days be publishing extensively about this topic quoting references from authoritative sources.


I shall not sit on the fence when my compatriots are being subjected to inhuman treatment under the hands of the very government and security forces we expect better from. Where is the justification for Ghana celebrating her sixty years of political independence amid such acts of sponsored injustices? SHAME!!!


Rockson Adofo


Dated: Saturday, 4 March 2017