Chief of Afari, near Kumasi, Oheneba Acheampong Tia II, has found himself at the wrong side of the law, after threatening to unleash terror on a private developer, if the latter does not stop working on a piece of land at Tanoso, Kumasi, Today can report.
Sources at the Ashanti Regional Crime Office told Today that the chief and his accomplice, Oppong Boateng, had earlier been invited to the police headquarters in Accra, after a complaint had been made against him.
Accordingly, Oppong Boateng, the source said, reported but the chief resorted to playing hide-and-seek game with the police, until criminal summons was issued against him to appear in court.
However, the prosecutor withdrew the criminal summons against the chief, and was subsequently discharged by the Asokwa Magistrate Court.
But not long before his acquittal, Oheneba Acheampong Tia II, who is also the Abrenyasehene, was re-arrested by the police.
His charge was that he threatened one Nana Dominc K. Asamoah, who apparently happened to be the attorney of the said estate developer.
Today gathered that Oheneba Acheampong Tia II further threatened the workers who were constructing a petrol filling station on the said land.
Documents chanced upon by Today has revealed that somewhere in February 1998, one Mr. Kennedy Osei Yaw returned from his base in Canada to purchase a piece of land located at Tanoso, off the Abuakwa to Kumasi highway, from the late Chief of Afari, Oheneba Acheampong Kwasi III, which he planned to develop as a petrol filling station.
The documents further revealed that the lawful attorney of Mr. Kennedy Osei Yaw, Nana Dominic K. Asamoah, was later, after the demise of Oheneba Acheampong Kwasi III, approached by the Odikro (Chief) of Abessewa, Nana Subin Kankam Amaado II, who was also the custodian of the ancient Tano Kofi Royal Shrine of Tanoso, Kumasi in May 2001 to stop working on the land.
Nana Amaado II, according to the documents, claimed that the land belonged to the Tano Kofi Stool but sold it to Mr. Osei Yaw at a higher price.
The late Bantamahene, Nana Baffour Awuah, was also reported to have asked the developer to stop working on the land.
That move, according to him, was because the Great Oath of the Asantehene was invoked on the land.
However, the attorney of the estate developer recounted that at one traditional court session to resolve the matter his boss was directed to perform certain rituals so as to revoke the oath on the land.
He further recounted that the late Bantamahene promised to inform the Asantehene of the proceedings and the next line of action.
And whiles waiting to do so, he said, one Madam Abena Penaman, filed a suit at a Kumasi High Court in June 2001, for an injunction order, to restrain any person from working on the land, claiming that the land in question belonged to her.
But the court, according to him, ruled against her. He continued that the late Bantamahene then asked Kennedy to continue his work on the land.
Nevertheless, he said not long before the late Bantamahene asked his boss to continue working on the land in 2001, the Lands Commission also asked them to stop.
According to Nana Dominic K. Asamoah, the Commission claimed that the land was a state land and not a stool land.
That, he stressed, did not stop them from pursuing the matter.
However, he said they approached the Lands Commission and requested that the land should be leased to them which after series of meetings was subsequently leased to them in 2009.
However, he said Oheneba Acheampong Tia II shortly after they had restarted working on the land came back to stop them, claiming that Manhyia in 2001 warned any developer on the land.
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