Stop exploiting our father's name for politics – Ya Na's Children

Children of the late beheaded Dagbon Overlord have accused politicians of past and present governments of exploiting their father’s fate for political gain.

In a statement issued on Saturday March 22, 2014 ahead of the 12th anniversary of the late Overlord’s murder and copied to XYZ News, Ya Na Yakubu Andani II’s children said the former Kufuor administration, under which their father was murdered, treated the case with the “contempt it didn’t deserve.”

They said although the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), in its 2008 political manifesto, promised to find, arrest and prosecute the perpetrators, “the ‘fake’ arrests ended up with a ‘fake’ release’, a situation the children assert strengthened the intransigence of the perpetrators and encouraged them to not show remorse for their “gruesome” crime.

Also, the children say John Mahama’s administration, still under the NDC, has also failed to address the issue pragmatically, except continue to pay “lip service” to the matter.

The aggrieved children say if those at the helm of affairs fail to bring the perpetrators to justice, Almighty Allah will place his supreme judgment on the killers.

They have resolved to use all legitimate means to seek justice for their father and the 40 others killed in the raid and will also “no longer tolerate the name of our father cited by politicians and others to gain social standing in life.”

Signatories to the statement include Mohammed Yakubu, Abdulai Andani Yakubu, Abdulai Iddi Yakubu, Nasike Yakubu and Budali Yakubu.

Yakubu Andani II was decapitated at his Gbewaa Palace on Wednesday March 27, 2002. Scores of his family members and elders were also killed that day. There have been recurrent skirmishes and conflicts between the Andani and Abudu royal families in Dagbon over the murders. The two families are sharply divided on political lines as well. Andanis are perceived to be supporters of the NDC and the Abudus perceived to be supporters of the NPP. Chieftaincy and tribal clashes between the two families have almost always been linked to political undertones.