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The celebration of this year�s Homowo Festival at Ashalaja, near Amasaman in the Greater Accra Region, turned bloody when a 36-year-old man was shot, while five others sustained gunshot wounds, in a chieftaincy dispute in the area last Saturday. The man who was shot, identified as Charles Kwaw Minta Addy, died at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital a day after the incident. The injured, whose identities are being withheld by the police, were admitted to the Nsawam Government Hospital. The police have since arrested five persons, including a former chief of Ashalaja, Nii Solomon Obendey, whose stool name was Nii Akwanor IV until his name was expunged from the register of the National House of Chiefs on July 16, 2014. One of the sons of the former chief, identified only as Joshua, believed to have acted in concert with his father to shoot Addy and the others, is on the run with some of the followers of his father. Sprinkling of kpoikpoi According to the Amasaman District Police Commander, Superintendent of Police Mr George Andrew Kumah, the police heard that Nii Obendey was preparing to sprinkle �kpokpoi�, the Ga traditional food, as part of activities to mark Homowo last Saturday morning. According to Ga tradition, the sprinkling of �kpoikpoi� is the preserve of the chief of an area. He said some members of the Akwanor Royal Family, from where the reigning chief hailed, approached Nii Obendey to find out why he was parading himself as a chief, against the directive of the Ga Traditional Council and the National House of Chiefs. Mr Kumah said �unknown to them, Nii Obendey and his followers were armed to the teeth and they fired through the people who approached him", as a result of which six people, including Addy, were injured. He said the police arrived at the scene �just as the incident occurred and arrested four suspects, but Nii Obendey, his son and the other followers managed to escape�. Empty bullet shells were retrieved from Nii Obendey�s house and the streets where the incident happened. Mob attack Mr Kumah said the police were later informed that Nii Obendey, in the course of his escape, got stuck in traffic on the railway line near the Amasaman Market. �But when he got out of his car, some bystanders who saw bloodstains in the car suspected he might have committed a crime and, therefore, vandalised the car, while he escaped,� he said. A policeman who happened to be at the scene arrested two of the people who vandalised the car, while the others fled on seeing the police. A single-barrelled gun was found in the vandalised car. Later, he said, Nii Obendey lodged a complaint at the Tesano Police Station that he had been attacked in his home by some persons. The Tesano Police consequently gave him a medical form to go to hospital. While Nii Obendey was undergoing treatment at the 37 Military Hospital in Accra, he was identified by some residents of Ashalaja as the person who had allegedly shot a number of persons. The Amasaman Police were informed, leading to the arrest of the former chief, who is currently being guarded by policemen at the 37 Military Hospital. Father of deceased At the deceased�s family house, family members, in mourning clothes, sobbed, while members of the community and other sympathisers sat in groups under tents to mourn his passing. Addy�s father, Nii Adam Addy, 61, in an interview at his home at Ashalaja, said he had heard that his son had been shot last Saturday �and at dawn on Sunday I was informed by a caller on telephone that my son has died�. He said Addy, who left behind four wives and 13 children, was a member of the Akwanor Royal Family and had last Thursday presented a letter on behalf of the family to the police, requesting for police protection during the celebration of the Homowo, which started last Friday, August 15, 2014 and was to end yesterday. Nii Addy said as a tradition, every year the traditional food was sprinkled on streets, but last year as a result of the chieftaincy dispute, the Amasaman District Assembly banned the tradition and directed residents to observe the celebration in their homes. According to him, the former chief had announced on television that this year he would sprinkle the traditional food to signify that he was the reigning chief. Nii Addy said the former chief, with his followers suspected to be land guards, were spotted in red attire and hand bands, parading the streets. �My son was in his grandfather's house, popularly known as Appiah We, when he saw Nii Obendey and his entourage sprinkling the traditional food. That was the point when he was shot at,� he said. �We now live in fear. We feel we are not safe and we appeal to the police to ensure there is sanity and peace in our community,� an uncle of the deceased, Mr Kwame Addy, pleaded.