Unravelling the Secret behind Asantehene's Foot-dragging

to solving Kumawu Chieftaincy Dispute

I should be running naked out of my room on to the street shouting "Eureka! Eureka! Eureka!" as did Archimedes. I have today found the reason why Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II has been dragging his feet on, and showing no resolute desire to resolving, the Kumawu chieftaincy dispute. For all I knew until now was, he stood to benefit from Kumawuman the longer the case remained unresolved.

My sleep was disturbed this morning, Saturday 3 March 2012 when my cell phone rang. I hesitated reaching out for the phone. It cut off before I could get for it. Barely had I recoiled into bed again without bothering to check who the caller was, when the phone rang once more. I got it at last. Guess what. A friend who had wrenched vital information out of the mouth of a supposed Ankaase royal, and was eager to pass it on or share it with me was the caller. An Ankaase royal had told him Kumawuhemaa had said with resolute determination, "As long as I live, I will never pass the throne to the Ananangya people. I will rather have Asantehene keep it than to allow someone from Ananangya to occupy it. It is either it remains with the Ankaase royals, or Asantehene keeps it" I could initially not get my head around what my friend told me until I got out of bed, washed my face and cleaned my teeth. It was when I was sipping a steaming cup of tea little by little, piecing things together, that I began to understand the motive behind deplorable attitude by Asantehene to resolving the Kumawu case. "T33 naa goo de" as a Hussa man will say.

Has Kumawuhemaa, his girlfriend, secretly signed a pact with him to exercise unrestrained traditional authority over Kumawuman? No wonder he has ordered for the surveying and possible partitioning of Kumawu stool lands among Kumawu, Kwamang and Agogo. By craftily reducing the land, mass of Kumawuman as Otumfuo Osei Tutu II is about to embark on, he seeks to weaken the authority of any future chief of Kumawu. Kwamang and Agogo were once Kumawuman lands. Kumawu was seen to be too powerful so to punish Barima Kwame Afram, the then reigning Kumawuhene of Ankaase descent, Asantehene Sir Osei Agyemang Prempeh II made Kwamanghene a paramount chief, separating him from Kumawu. Some Asantehenes have made efforts to weaken Kumawu further. Agogo though on Kumawuhene's land, has been separated from Kumawuhene's authority and her ruler made a paramount chief. Each time a chief is elevated to such a high status, Asantehene allocates him a land of his own. Kumawuman is therefore getting weaker and weaker. Oh, how jinxed is Kumawu?

The Ankaase royals do not give a hoot if Kumawuman will be reduced to nothing. All they care about is pursuing unlawful wealth and malicious ambition of exterminating the matrilineal descendants of Barima Tweneboa Koduah I.

Asantehene should explain why he is not showing needed concern and effort to arbitrate the Kumawu case as it is required of him. Does he want to continue to ensure the Ankaase usurpers still occupy the throne, though as evil as they have always been? Why is Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II not compelling his girlfriend, Kumawuhemaa to respond to the oaths so invoked on her since four years ago? Is it because he wants to unify both Kumasi and Kumawu under his absolute authority as his girlfriend is bragging about? "TOFIAKWA"

Kumawuman are obliging Asantehene to come forward with tangible reasons why Kumawuman is still without a paramount chief. I am conveying to the attention of Asantehene that the Ankaase royals with his girlfriend inclusive are purely ineligible royals. They only found themselves occupying the throne by default. Does Asantehene want gargantuan land and authority by illegal means? I advise him to take cue from the Woyome saga. On the other hand, he can still go ahead with his plans as secretly hatched by Kumawuhemaa to unify Kumawu and Kumasi under his august personage.

He who crookedly exercises unnecessarily absolute powers lives with the consequential repercussions for the rest of their life. A word to the conniving greedy lots is enough.

John Fosu