At night, when most people, in fact, when most good-hearted and God-fearing people go to bed succumbing to the call of nature, others do not. Some of those who do not, do everything under the Moon or dark sky to fight their biological clock, and stay awake just to wreck others’ lives and cause more havoc to what should otherwise be a peaceful night when no evil stirs. Like a thief in the night, they steal away the dreams of the sons and daughters of the land, and with them the hope for a better future. Such has become the wranglings around the Nandom chieftaincy, that some of the “Dark Knaves” involved in these dark and diabolical schemes may surprise you.
These new revelations come on the heels of President John Dramani Mahama’s call for peaceful succession processes in the selection of chiefs. He made the call last Saturday 28th February, 2015, when he joined the people of , during the funeral of ….., the chief of …. Would it that John Mahama were President in 1984, perhaps the Nandom chieftaincy may not have been gripped by such malevolent, conniving and diabolical maneuvres.
In my last reporting, I noted that a priest, one Father Koyaa (I have been corrected that the name is spelled “Koyaa”, not “Koyah” – my apologies) is deep in the conspiracy to hijack the Nandom chieftaincy and its processes for the sole purpose of aiding and abetting Dr. Delle’s scheme to trade horses with Charles Imoru, the “current” Nandom Naa. This is because the said Fr. Koyaa is said to be the Secretary to the faltering Unity Talks that have been on-going in the Nandom Royal Family for some time now. In this key position, he has had access to information that he now seeks to manipulate in favour of the person and the scheme he supports. That scheme, about which I reported earlier, was intended to be a secret; it appears my reporting has sort of blown the plan wide open and has caused key stakeholders to raise some critical questions about what is going on in Nandom (similar to my breaking of the Metro Mass story; more on Metro Mass soon). Not least among the inquisitive and irate stakeholders is the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs itself. Information reaching this writer indicates that the Ministry is up in arms that at a time when it is painstakingly laying the ground work to finally, hopefully, rid our chieftaincy institutions of perennial conflicts arising from the malicious acts of subterfuge, irregular succession processes dominated by criminal-minded individuals, the Nandom Chieftaincy, one of the longest-running chieftaincy disputes in the country, is falling victim again to a new set of royal roguery.
The Ministry is right to be upset with these new maneuvers. The perpetrators of these new plots have at various times invoked the name of the Ministry itself in order to legitimize their diabolical actions. They variously dropped names of officials at the Ministry, claiming to be acting under their direction or claiming to be “friendly” with key government operatives in the Ministry. A case in point is when the Ministry announced that it had constituted a panel of experts to research the various troubled chieftaincies, with a view to providing a reliable body of information to assist the Ministry in resolving the disputes. Two of the alleged new conspirators - David Kpelle, and Dr. Delle, individually claimed at various times to family members that they know the Minister personally, and would be able to use that relationship to make sure the “right” information gets to the Ministry. They said this as a boast to boost their standing among family members and to create the impression that they are the new power brokers politically and traditionally. Both Dr. Delle and David Kpelle were unavailable for comment, but indications are they have continued to assert their ties to the Chieftaincy Ministry. That claim of closeness to the Minister, is now manifesting itself in the form of secret plans (well, not so secret now after my reporting) to co-opt and thwart the efforts of the royal family at unity and a clear and credible succession process.
Another issue which has the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs angry is the fact that a certain Questionnaire said to be in secret circulation among a secret group of people is said to have come directly from the Ministry, instructing the current recipients of that Questionnaire, notably the Rev. Fr. Koyaa and Dr. Delle, to keep the document completely secret from the rest of the royal family members. In fact, evidence of this secrecy was demonstrated recently when one of the characters in these new dirty schemes, is said to have read questions and answers in the Questionnaire at a motley gathering of family members. When news of this gathering and the action therein described spread, several family members raised objections to the fact that they had not been informed and provided with blank copies of the Questionnaire to answer. In their view, it is important (if this Questionnaire is indeed coming from the Ministry) to gather responses from all royal family members or all sub-royal house representatives, so as to properly and comprehensively inform the answers raised by the Questionnaire. Attempts to verify who brought that Questionnaire to the gathering remain elusive. However, this writer did contact the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs who unequivocally stated they had not sent any Questionnaire to any person or royal family. In fact, they stressed that anybody using any document purported to be coming from the Ministry, was doing so illegally, as the Ministry has not issued any such directive on any chieftaincy matter in the country, including the Nandom one. They stated that to date, the only general directive was that chieftaincy institutions were to document their respective succession processes and make such processes available to the Research Committee instituted at the Ministry. Further, that they expect that in areas where there are chieftaincy disputes, a transparent and unified process ought to be adopted to generate such a document. Unfortunately, what seems to be going on in the Nandom case is neither transparent nor unitary. Instead, secret maneuvres are on-going, using the Ministry’s good name and reputation in the process, to give legitimacy to what is simply an agenda to trade horses and hijack the Nandom chieftaincy once again.
Several other secret documents are being formulated and surreptitiously circulated to and through certain family members, not just in Ghana but in faraway United Kingdom. Various letters, some of them obviously seeing several revisions by a secret group of participants, seen by this writer, continue to support the concern of the larger royal family, that there is a secret agenda afoot. Such letters by themselves appear innocent enough, unless one sees the email communications which accompany such letters – and the mailing list is revealing but unsurprising: many of the same characters involved in the diabolical maneuvres I recently highlighted are involved. The consistency across the emails, show that they are all united behind the secret quid pro quo plan to hijack the Nandom chieftaincy for Dr. Delle should Charles Imoru die before him, in return for Dr. Delle, persuading the family to pardon Imoru for usurping the chieftaincy. Some of the key members of this distribution list are smart to not directly leave an electronic imprint of their involvement, preferring to use surrogates. For example, Dr. Delle is missing from the list although he is references only within the body of the emails. Instead, a the said David Kpelle seems to be deeply involved, sometimes appearing to convey the positions held by Dr. Delle on several related issues. If my inference is correct, this David Kpelle must be an ass to be doing someone’s dirty work. Other more recent communications suggest Mr. Kpelle is perhaps is having second thoughts about being thus used. Unfortunately, he cannot “Unsend” those emails now and the linkages in these communications reveal part of the dark maneuvres. You know, technology is a double-edged knife which leaves a trail of blood in its wake.
Their only difficulty remains the Head of Family, who has declared his support for only a transparent and credible process, not a secret plan. Reacting to the news of the Questionnaire and prepared responses, he stated that he is aware the Questionnaire is a very old one, sent during the time of the PNDC in power in the 1990s. In fact, it was meant to be shared throughout the royal family, but Charles Imoru, then deep in his schemes to hijack the chieftaincy, kept it from the rest of the family. However, that Rear Admiral Dzang was able to secure a copy, and circulated the Questionnaire across the entire royal family. He suggested a copy from Dzang went to the very Fr. Koyaa now a controversial fixture in this new agenda. This account was supported by other family members who recalled their filling that Questionnaire in the 1990s. Upset, the Head of Family is questioning why that questionnaire, is now being presented secretly, in the name of the Ministry as a new directive.
To ordinary people with the good of Nandom at heart, it is troubling why this royal family cannot get its act together. Most people question why certain people in this family have a penchant for criminal conspiracy and diabolical schemes. Those who know the family well note that the family had many noble, honorable and honest forebears, but question why the current generation appears to be saddled with many more destructive elements. These questions give credence to the overarching question whether chieftaincy has any relevance in our modern democracy; and I find myself leaning more towards that conclusion with every new revelation about the Nandom chieftaincy. For, give me any amount of gold, social status, honour and whatever other perks being a chief attracts; add such malevolent, conniving and wickedly dysfunctional royal family characters; then add the Nandom chieftaincy to it, and I would gladly remain in obscurity, choosing a life of peace, quiet and unknowingness. For what does it profit a person, if you gain the Nandom chieftaincy, at the expense of the simple, basic morality of doing the right thing? Nothing! Absolutely Nothing! All this comes to an end, the day you die, and attempts to shape the context of your death or write your own eulogy is vain, ridiculous and futile. When you die, others who survive you write the requiem to your passing, and they write it on the basis of the facts of your life, not on the basis of falsity of how you lived. Watch this space…. More anon.

Francis Dery
Email: dery.francis@yahoo.com