Although E/R Okyenhene made the governing Amanase chief beat the retreat, he didn't sell the royal graveyard.

Obenfo Addo Agyekum (I), the regent of Amanase, a town close to Suhum in the Eastern region, has issued a statement emphasizing that the Okyenhene had nothing a do with the selling of the local community's royal cemetery.

He claims that Okyenhene just made a decision about a disagreement that developed eleven years ago following the sale of the cemetery to an investor.

On Thursday, April 21, 2023, Suhum District Police Command descended upon Amanase Chiefs Palace to seize the excavated human remains that were housed there.

After it was allegedly sold to an investor for the purpose of building a gas station, the bodies were exhumed from the local royal cemetery.

Exhumed remains include those of late chiefs and royals. Two of the bodies that were exhumed had just been buried.

One of the recently discovered bodies was reburied, but the other was left at the Suhum Government Hospital morgue.

However, the exhumed skeletons of previous leaders of the village were kept in a room at the palace by the Gyaasehene of Amanase Obenfo Addo Agyekum, who also serves as acting chief of the community.

Recently, some members of the royal family and locals were outraged by this.

Obenfo Addo Agyekum previously told Starr News, "We have to exhume the bodies since the cemetery has been sold to an investor. To enable the investor to develop the site, Okyenhene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin personally ordered that the bodies be exhumed, so we arranged a community durbar and invited everyone, including pastors and opinion leaders, to discuss the issue.

He said further that After the bodies were exhumed, it became clear that a new royal cemetery needed to be established in order to rebury the Chiefs' remains.The skeletons will be kept in a room here at the palace until we can get a cemetery so we may rebury them. We attempted several times to get allocated land for that purpose but were unsuccessful. We sent two new bodies to the Suhum government hospital, but only one of them was buried; the other remains there.

In response, Obenfo Addo Agyekum told the media on Friday, April 21, 2022, that the cemetery was actually sold to an investor by the late chief Nana Asamoah Darkwaa in 2012 in front of witnesses Osabarima Asamoah Asare Ampofo, Abena Asamabea, and one teacher Offei.

However, there was opposition, so the investor petitioned the Judicial Committee of the Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Council, which was presided over by Okyenhene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori. The Judicial Committee decided in the investor's favor and issued an exhumation order as a result.

It is untrue what is circulating in the media that Okyenhene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin is behind the sale of Amanase old cemetery land because, based on this evidence, I want to categorically state that he had nothing to do with the sale of the old Amanase cemetery, which was sold by our predecessors (Nananom).

"We decided to exhume the bodies, especially those of the royals, to rebury them," he continued. We performed mass burials for some and sent the recently deceased bodies to the official mortuary in Suhum.Because of a problem at the Suhum government mortuary, we had to keep some of the skeletal remains of our late royals and chiefs in the palace until we could quickly buy a plot of land that would be used only for the burial of their skeletal remains. This caused a delay in buying the land, but now that we have it, we will carry out the necessary rites, bury them, and give them a good rest.