Member of Parliament for Zebilla East Constituency, Cletus Avoka, has detailed the ongoing conflict in Bawku by providing the root cause of this conflict.
The Member of Parliament said on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana show, that many commentators on this issue, do not know the background and proffer conclusions about the matter.
He further said that others also know and do not want to speak the truth. Cletus Avoka explained that the Bawku enclave is predominantly Kusasi.
He, therefore gave a brief background to the conflict in Bawku, asserting that the Mamprusi came to Bawku during the Trans-Saharan trade, when goods from the south used to come to Salaga.
He said goods like gunpowder, drinks, cola nuts, etc., passed through Salaga, and from Salaga to Nalerigu, then descended to Bawku, before moving to Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, among others. “That was the route of the Trans-Saharan trade,” he said.
He went on to say that, the Kusasi in Bawku used to seize the traders’ goods. On account of that, and because the traders settled in Nalerigu first, the Nayiri decided to establish a police post in Bawku to protect the traders. So he sent a few Mamprusi people to Bawku to settle there and maintain the trade route.
The Zebilla MP, further highlighted that “the story is that the Kusasi were there and harassing the traders; that is why the Nayiri decided to do that. So they came there but were not choosing over the Kusasi, who were the landowners and everything.
They only co-existed because the Kusasi were not part of this trading business. He indicated that this is what happened, and normally when a community comes to some place, they get their own community chief. “We have the Frafra community chief, Kusasi community chief, and the rest, but none of them can become the Ga Mantse, no matter how strong they are, because they have come to do business in Accra.”
He further said that the Akans are many in Accra and can even outnumber the Ga, but they cannot become Ga Mantse, indicating that this is the story of Bawku.
Cletus Avoka said, “When the Europeans came in 1900, they were going to rule the area through chiefs because they didn’t have the administrative personnel. So they settled first in the Nalerigu–Gambaga area with the Nayiri; that is where the white man sought self-defense, and from there, the Nayiri prince’s and interpreters escorted them to Bawku.”
Cletus Avoka narrated, “Naturally, when they got to Bawku, they were with those protecting the trade route at Bawku. The white man wanted one person controlling the whole area, but because we are acephalous, we didn’t have one person controlling the whole area.” So the white man just decided that since the Mamprusi understood chieftaincy and they wanted the chiefs to rule them, they would make the Mamprusi settlers in Bawku the Bawku Naba.
He affirmed that since then, the Kusasi have been struggling, caught up in the independence struggle as well. He indicated that in 1956, the Mamprusi Bawku Naba died, and in 1957, the Mamprusi left Bawku to go to Nalerigu. “They never went to the Northern Region to the Nayiri for enskinment to come and rule the Kusasi in Bawku.
The MP affirmed that the Kusasipeople said, now the country is struggling for independence for the white man to go, the Mamprusi should also go to Nalerigu; as they cannot be chief over them. So while the Mamprusi were in Nalerigu, they decided to get a chief. The Kusasi also decided to enskin their Tindana of Bawku to be their chief.
In June 1957, the Nayiri enskinned a Mamprusi chief of Bawku, and then the Kusasi enskinned their own Bawku Naba.
Cletus Avoka stated that the last colonial governor, Lord Listowel, set up a committee, indicating that he couldn’t recognize any of them without investigations.
Lord Listowel set up a committee of inquiry to ascertain the claims of the Kusasi and the Mamprusi regarding who were the landowners and supposed traditional rulers.
The committee was chaired by OpokuAsare, a lawyer from the Volta Region. The other two members were Nana Agyeman Badu I, the late Dormaahene, and one other at the time.
They went to Bawku to investigate and presented a report to the then colonial government, stating that in fact, the Mamprusi came there as settlers, while the Kusasi were doing everything. “That is why the Mamprusi is only a family, but the Kusasi is a whole tribe,” he said.
He again stated that it is administratively, politically, and developmentally wrong for the Nayiri, who has a family in Bawku, to impose the Mamprusi chief on the Kusasi, as that is untraditional.
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