Opinions of Monday, 17 April 2023

Columnist: Rockson Adofo

Why are some chiefs so ignorant and wicked?

Kumawu township Kumawu township

Before a word is said about the motive for putting out this publication, let me emphasise to the public that Kumawu has a SAAMAHENE and a SAANAHENE and that I am here to highlight the conspiring attitude of the Saamahene to harm Rockson Adofo.

I was recently in Ghana on a holiday and spent time in Kumawu on what could be said to be a night or two bases from time to time.

Human beings are naturally capable of exhibiting diurnal and nocturnal characteristics, I decided to attend a funeral and visit some persons during both broad daylight and at night.

Little did I know that Kumawu Saamahene, a sub-chief who in the early 1970s was two years my junior at then Kumawu Tweneboa Kodua Secondary School, had been shadowing me for obvious conspiratorial objectives.

He was contacting people inquiring if the person he had been seeing sauntering down the streets of Kumawu during the day and by night was indeed Rockson Adofo.

Yes, it was me indeed, Rockson Adofo, the proud and fearless and no-nonsense son of Kumawu/Asiampa soil.

In the course of his investigatory interviews, he had the shameless audacity to announce to his contacts that I had been putting out online publications to insult Kumawuhene “Barima” Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua, Kumawuhemaa Nana Abena Serwaah Amponsah, Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II and some of the Kumawu sub-chiefs.

Was there the need for telling them all that in his attempts to establish the identity of the person he was hallucinating about, unsure whether he was actually Rockson Adofo or not?

If I had, or have been, and will be, insulting, the chiefs mentioned above, so what? What did they do to merit insults from me? Would they have been insulted if they did the right things, respecting the laws and conventions in place as regards their office vis a vis the subjects?

Is it right for Asantehene to avariciously avail himself of over 280,000 hectares of Kumawu stool lands at the Afram Plains at the expense of Kumawuman citizens but in collusion with the insatiably greedy “sikadicious” Kumawuhemaa and the self-styled Kumawuhene “Barima” Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua?

Saamahene, are you happy to see Kumawu continue to be without money to create jobs for the unemployed youths that have subsequently taken to excessive alcohol drinking and dying young? Are you again happy to see Kumawu where you have lived man and boy, continue to suffer the ravages of the carpet erosion it is subjected to, laying bare the sharp rocks dangerously protruding from the topsoil while Asantehene is given unfettered access to claim ownership and use of Kumawu stool lands, contrary to standing custom and tradition?

Saamahene, do you know anything about the Kumawu history pertaining to the requests made by Barima Tweneboa Kodua I, the originator of the Kumawu Kodua Stool, upon the granting of which he offered himself as a sacrificial lamb to save Asanteman from the dreaded king of Denkyira, Nana Ntim Gyakari?

Saamahene, do you side with Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II making a preposterous claim of ownership to all land in the Ashanti region without any paramount chief and families (“abusua”) owning lands in the region?

In all these instances, is it not Rockson Adofo who musters the courage to expose him while people like you nod and applaud him for his lies, abuses of power and greediness?

Saamahene and his gang that are scheming against Rockson Adofo should brace themselves for the onslaught about to be unleashed on them, as ignorant, puppets, sycophants and unlettered as they are.

Are we not warned against opening up old wounds because they hurt? For Saamahene to open up an old wound, he will live to regret it.