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A group of secessionists calling itself the Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF) has declared the Volta Region independent of Ghana – now Western Togoland.

The independence declaration was made by the group’s 85-year-old leader, Mr Charles Kudzordzi also known as Papavi Hogbedetor, on Saturday, 16 November 2019 at a public gathering of the group’s adherents at the premises of the former Unity Rural Bank which is a few metres away from the Ho Police Training school.

The secessionist declaration was broadcast live on Facebook.

The group, which has had several brushes with the law on the matter in the past, rode on the recent omission of the Volta Region from the list of critical roads to be constructed in 2020 when the Finance Minister presented next year’s budget to Parliament, in declaring the region independent.

Speaking in his native Ewe language in reference to the gaffe, which was corrected by Mr Ken Ofori-Atta on Friday, which the government has subsequently described as a “genuine inadvertent mistake” which resulted from a “printing error”, Papa Hogbedetor wondered if it was ever possible for parents to forget their children. 

“They forgot about us because we’re not their children”, he said, declaring to cheers from his followers: “From the midnight of 16 November 2019 entering into Sunday, 17 November 2019, we’re now Western Togoland state”.