Help unravel the cause of death of chief in detention

Kumasi (Ashanti Region) - A Principal Officer of Ghana Telecom on Wednesday appealed to the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) to assist unravel the cause of death in detention 40 years ago of his father, Nana Akwesi Duku, chief of Wioso in the Ashanti Akim North District.

Collins Aninagyie also wants the Commission to help his family to find where he was buried to enable them to perform a fitting royal burial. He told the Commission at its public hearing in Kumasi on Wednesday that they heard of the death of the chief three mouths after he had been buried.

Nana Duku's arrest in 1960, he said, followed his refusal to join the then ruling Convention People's Party (CPP). He claimed one Nana Kwabena Darkwa who was Bompatahene and a staunch activist of the CPP facilitated it. Aninagyie said it was revealed to him by the late Safo Kantanka, a former District Commissioner and Opanin Kwesi Berema, who was in detention

with his father at the Nsawam Prisons that the late chief was given an injection every three days by the authorities although he was not sick.

This led to Nana Duku developing a mental problem and an eventual transfer from Nsawam Prisons to the Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital. Re-counting the incident, Anim Adjei said he and his other siblings were with their father at his palace one Wednesday, about two days to Christmas in 1960 when about eight police officers entered.

He said the officers led by one Onyina, the then Mampong Divisional Commander, told them that the Government had asked them to arrest the chief. When they asked why the Government was looking for the chief, Aniagyei said the police replied that they were acting on instructions.

He said after his arrest, Nana Duku was first sent to Kumasi, then transferred to James Fort prisons and from there to Usher Fort and finally to Nsawam Medium Security Prisons where he was allowed to see visitors once in three months. Aniadjei said the arrest of his father adversely affected the education of his 13 children.

He also claimed that CPP activists poured salt solution into the engine of his commercial vehicle that was sustaining the family and thereby spoiling it. Madam Yaa Mansa, wife of the late chief, corroborated the evidence of Aniadjei, pointing out that at the time of her husband's arrest and detention she was pregnant.

"My last daughter never saw her father," she added. When he took his turn Kweku Oti a native of Kukuom in the Brong

Ahafo region said severe torture in 1982 by a group of soldiers had left him with chronic pain in the head and chest. He said they used the butt of their guns to hit the mouth several times and "used pestles to pound me like they were pounding fufu."

Oti, who is a welder at the Suame Magazine, said he lost 11 teeth in the process. His only crime, he said, was that he was a member of the "Lord is my Shepherd Church," founded by the late Odifu Samuel Asare. He said it was only by a miracle that he was alive and that at a point the soldiers thought "I was dead and dumped me at the Okomfo Anokye hospital".

Oti said he lost an area demarcated for him at the Magazine and appealed to the NRC to help him get it back. Another witness Madame Adwoa Nyarko, a cloth seller, who was the mother in-law of the late Odifo Asare, said the first floor of her story building, was burnt by a group of soldiers in February 1982 who also looted all her property.

She said some of the looted items, including a deep freezer and fridges were traced to the military barracks in Kumasi but she was warned not to lay claim to them. Madame Nyarko said her business collapsed and appealed to the Commission to assist her get back the lost property.

On her part, Madame Effia Birago, a trader and farmer, told the Commission that she returned from a funeral in 1982 only to find that her property had been ransacked by a group of soldiers. She said the soldiers had told her children who were then in the room at the time that they could not understand why a woman could come by such property.