Three Kingmakers of the Kumawu Traditional Area in the Ashanti Region have called the bluff of the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, describing their purported destoolment by the king as arbitrary and without any effect.

Nana Akwasi Baffo II, Akwamuhene; Nana Sarfo Agyekum II, Aduanahene; and Nana Okyere Krapah, Akyempemhene said Otumfuo Osei Tutu had no customary right to destool any chief of Kumawu as the Asanteman, for which he heads, is a confederate state. They had threatened to break away from Asanteman.

Addressing a press conference at Kumawu yesterday, the angry chiefs, who were adorned in red cloths, noted with concern the “creeping threat of arbitrariness in the conflict resolution of chieftaincy and other traditional problems in Asanteman.”

According to the chiefs, they still maintained their stance that the selection and installation of 47-year-old Dr Emmanuel Yaw Kantanka Sarfo-Asante as paramount chief of Kumawu fell short of due process and contravened established Asante customary practices and tradition.

In their view, “such hard-handedness and the penchant to ignore age-old customary practices would gradually break up Asanteman, which they say was founded and anchored on the tenets of confederacy that delimit powers including the sanctity of the paramount chiefs.”

Nana Sarfo Agyekum II, who read the press statement, told journalists that the lands of Asanteman did not belong to any chief, and that the paramount chiefs are trustees.

“Out of the nine kingmakers of Kumawu—of which four are deceased—only two of them were consulted. The critical roles of Krontihene—the Acting President of Kumawu Traditional Council—the Akwamuhene and Akyempemhene were completely ignored,” he indicated.

They argued that the installed paramount chief was not vetted properly, asserting that the swearing-in of Dr Sarfo-Kantaka as Kumawu chief was an act of illegality and imposition.

Dr Emmanuel Yaw Kantanka Sarfo-Asante, a medical superintendent in-charge of the Saint Michael’s Catholic Hospital at Pramso in the Bosomtwe District of the Ashanti Region, was recently installed the new chief of Kumawu.

Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II’s representatives, in the persons of Nana Yaw Mensah and Baffour Antwi Boasiako, witnessed the installation at Kumawu on October 30, 2014, even though there was a pending case at the court.

He was given the stool name Barima Tweneboah Koduah and succeeded the late chief of Kumawu, Barima Asumadu Sakyi II, who passed away in 2007 after a 34-year rule.