The Paramount Chief of Akwamufie Traditional Council in the Eastern Region, Odeneho Kwafo Akoto III, has called for peaceful co-existence among the natives and chiefs of the area in order to ensure the development of Akwamuman.
He made this known when he stormed Akwamu to offer thanksgiving to God over the verdicts delivered by the Judicial Committee of the Regional House of Chiefs in his favour after having suffered five years of chieftaincy litigation of his installation as a paramount chief.
Odeneho Kwafo Akoto III, addressing the mammoth which had gathered to welcome him, mentioned that the dispute had retarded the development of the area, hence their call on other factions to accept the ruling of the traditional council.
The Eastern Regional House of Chiefs last Wednesday upheld the legitimacy of the Akwamuhene, Odeneho Kwafo Akoto III, after six years of litigation, ending the 25 years of historic dispute in Akwamu Traditional Area between the Yaa Ansaa and Botwe family from Aboabo.
The Judicial Committee of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs, chaired by Okyenhene Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori Panin, ruled that per the evidence, facts, history, custom and all the exhibits presented before the committee throughout the hearing “to ascend to the black stool of Akwamu, a candidate must of necessity come from either the House of Yaa Ansaa or Yaa Botwe family; that there is no established system of rotation in Akwamu to ascend to the paramount stool, that as far as the history of the people of Akwamu is concerned, the office of the queen mother is not alien to the people of Akwamu, that the first respondent is one in the series of queen mothers of Akwamu, that the fourth respondent (Odeneho Kwafo Akoto III ) was validly nominated, elected and installed as paramount chief of Akwamu in accordance with the custom and practices of the people of Akwamu.”
The 25 years chieftaincy dispute in Akwamu resurrected in 2011 when the queen mother from the Botwe royal family, Nana Afrakoma, enstooled Kwabena Owiredu, now with the stool name Odeneho Kwafo Akoto III, as Omanhene of Akwamu Traditional Area.
In a bid to stop the process, the rival Ansaa royal family referred the matter to a high court in Koforidua, but that did not stop the Botwe family from installing Nana Kwabena Owiredu as paramount chief of the Akwamu Traditional Area.
An arrest warrant was subsequently issued in 2012 for Nana Afrakoma and Nana Owiredu for contempt.
The matter was eventually referred to the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs for resolution, but the defendants – the Botwe royal family- accused the Ansaa family and the former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, who is head of the Ansaa family – of unduly dragging the matter.
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