AKILU SAYIBU: Government And National Security Failed The Murdered Chief Of Gariziegu!

On the 22nd day of March, 2010, I had a call from a friend at a very unusual time. I hurriedly picked the call and he said to me “The newly installed chief of Gariziegu in the Northern region has been murdered.

I asked him what happened. He answered “he was killed after a visit to a nearby village to express his gratitude to a friend who had attended his installation ceremony as chief of Gariziegu on the 14th March 2010.

Before the installation of Yakubu Andani as chief of Gariziegu there was already tension in the area. The source of the tension was occasioned by the regent of Gariziegu who also was eyeing the position of chief of Gariziegu.

A regent it must be explained is the eldest son of a late chief. He usually is not a substantive chief but acts as chief until the funeral of his father is performed and a new chief installed to take over from the regent.
The problem in some communities in the North is that, some regents after tasting the appellations and sweetness of acting as chiefs usually want to automatically succeed their late fathers as substantive chiefs.

However, the truth is that, things are not done that way. There could be four families say families A, B, C, and D taking turns to be chiefs. So if a member of say family A was the chief and dies; the fact that his regent automatically acts as chief until the funeral of the father is performed do not automatically means that, he could become the next chief.

What is expected to happen is that, after the performance of the funeral of the regent’s father the “Namship” automatically moves to the next family or gate.
In most jurisdictions the regents of the late chiefs are usually installed as lesser chiefs which is usually a symbol of recognition and respect to his family gate. If he happens to live long enough and the rotation gets to his family gate then he could be the next chief even though this is still even not automatic.
If the regents happen to have paternal uncles who are anxious of becoming chiefs then they could have it rather than the regents.

In the case of Gariziegu the regent whose father’s death created the vacancy wanted to succeed the father. However the Sagnarigu chief, who has jurisdiction over Gariziegu, instead installed Yakubu Andani.

Perhaps it was the turn of his family gate to occupy the Gariziegu skin.
The above is just to give a background of the tension that was mounting in Gariziegu and eventually led to the death of Yakubu Andani.
So from the explanation given above it was obvious that things didn’t just happen on the 22nd March when the chief was killed. It was known that trouble was indeed eminent!

The questions to ask are; where were the security agencies when it was obvious that tension was building up? What at all did they do to ensure that the chief of Gariziegu was not killed and also houses were not burnt? Who didn’t do his or her work well? Just why were things allowed to escalate when the signs were all over the place?
There is the very urgent need for somebody to answer these questions. It is obvious that, there was colossal complicity on the part of both the government and the security agencies to nip this tension in the bud.
The already volatile situation in Dagbon would have worsened if it were Andanis who killed an Abudu chief or the reverse. On this occasion it was an Andani Chief who was killed by Andani thugs.
There is definitely everything wrong with the internal security of the government of President Mills. It was Tuobodom the other day that a Chief was kidnapped. The inability of the security agencies to react on time led to the escalation of the crisis there, which led to some deaths and threat by the Ashantehene to also kidnap the Techimahene that woke national security and the government from their deepest sleep.
These are very serious issues which makes every Ghanaian everywhere unsafe. Martin Luther King Jnr. Once said that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’. And I will say; security lapses at Gariziegu are a threat to the safety of every Ghanaian everywhere.
The media also misled Ghanaians and the world when they splashed on their headlines “Tamale Chief killed” the truth is that Tamale chief was not killed! It was the chief of Gariziegu Yakubu Andani who was killed by thugs!
Why the chief of Tamale is quiet over reports that he was killed is not for me to answer. All I do believe is that, the media should apologize to the chief and people of Tamale for those inaccurate reports.
I am still at a loss as to why the elders of Dagbon have so far failed to condemn the killing of the chief and the security lapses that preceded his killing even up to the date of typing this article. What must also be placed on record is that, no chief of Shigu was killed as reported in sections of the media as well. Shigu is the next village after Gariziegu. So Gariziegu is Gariziegu and Shigu is Shigu!

Akilu Sayibu, UK
Email: Akilu.sayibu@live.uwe.ac.uk