Koforidua, Jan 24, GNA - The Odikro of Abomosalfo near Donkorkrom in the Afam Plains has appeared before a Koforidua High Court charged with six counts of forgery of document, possessing forged document, uttering forged document and deceit of public officers.
Nana Anku Dododza Didieye pleaded not guilty and the court asked him to continue to be on his police enquiry bail till February 08. Prosecuting Mr Anthony Gyambiby, a Principal State Attorney, told the court that the accused was a great-grandson of a man who was brought from northern Ghana to serve in the palace of the Asiedu Boafo Bretuo Stool at Brukuwa and he was named Kwaku Didieye and was assimilated into the family.
The court, presided over by Mr Justice F. Miezah Anyimah, was told that sometime later, Didieye was made the overseer of the Brukuwa stool land at Abomosalfo in the Afram Plains.
In 1990 when the position of Odikro of Abomosalfo became vacant the accused, a descendant of Didieye, was installed to take over based on an agreement between the Brukuwahene and him and he was named Nana Anku Dododza Didieye.
He said soon after the installation, the accused hatched a plan to dispossess the Brukuwa stool of the land by studying documents in the National Archives.
He obtained certain historical documents of the Gold Coast from which he compiled a fictitious document titled "A report on enquiry into Akwamu and Kwahu Land Dispute 1845" supposedly signed by a Major Cochrain.
Among the fictitious documents was a receipt purported to indicate that his great-grandfather, Kwaku Didieye, bought the land in the Abomosalfo area in 1845 for 250 pounds sterling.
Mr Gyambiby said in furtherance of his plans, the accused presented the documents to the National Archives for storage, claiming it was a vital Gold Coast document he found in a horn at a shrine at Abomosalfo.
He said as part of the grand design, the accused later went back to the National Archives and obtained authenticated copy of the document on which he stood to petition the Kwahu Traditional Council (KTC) in 1991 to claim the lands in the Abomosalfo area for which the council set up a committee of enquiry on the ownership of the land.
The accused, he said, presented the false document to the committee to back his claim for the land that eventually won for him the favourable verdict of the committee.
In order to consolidate his claim, Nana Didieye again relied on the false document to institute two suits at the Koforidua High Court and obtained judgements to that effect following the court's declaration that the document was "authentic and genuine".
Mr Gyambiby said since the Brukuwa Stool strongly believed that the stool was the rightful owners of the disputed land, it mandated someone to undertake an in depth investigations into the genuineness of the document.
It come out that the document was forgery and the case was reported to the police whose forensic laboratory also confirmed the falsity. He said a search conducted in the homes of the accused at both Abomosalfo and Accra led to the evidence to support the forgery. 24 Jan 06
