Ada chief gone missing

Unimpeachable sources in Ada and Accra have told The Ghanaian Chronicle that the Paramount Chief of the Ada Traditional Area, Nene Abram Akuaku III, the man in the centre of the Ada Songhor Salt Project, has disappeared.

Police sources confirmed the story on Monday evening. Nene Abram Akuaku III disappeared last Friday night or early Saturday morning. He was last seen with a royal know in private life as Edmund Ayiku, leader of a delegation that posed as royals representing the Ada Stool a few moments after buying regalia from the streets of Accra and hurriedly putting them on before entering the Castle.

The Paramount Chief was supposed to have come down to Accra over the weekend for a medical check-up at the Kumoji Hospital, in the capital.

A letter from the Kabiawe Royal Family of Ada, the inner clan from which the Paramount Chief hails, a copy of which was smuggled to the paper stated that Nene Akuaku left home on Saturday 18 January 2003, seemingly for Dr Kumorji’s hospital. “When Nene did not arrive by Sunday morning, Dr Kumorji sent a vehicle to Big Ada to pick him (for treatment) only to be told Nene had already left for his hospital.”

A family spokesman, who later in the evening called The Chronicle indicated to the paper that when they realised that their royal was nowhere to be seen shortly after the paper’s story, they had the feeling that the initial Chronicle story which was headlined ‘kidnapped’ was used as a smokescreen to kidnap the paramount chief.

The spokesman, Nene Kabu Owise Senaku IV, who is an adviser to the Paramount Chief suspects political foul play, and believes the man may have been smuggled somewhere to be coerced to sign documents that would give the Songhor Lagoon project piecemeal to voracious, greedy investors who do not have the interests of the Ada people at heart.

“We will advise ourselves if by Wednesday, the chief does not resurface. Let no man take us for granted,” he warned.