Teshie chieftaincy dispute to end soon

Harry Anthony Attipoe, Registrar of the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs (GARHC), has disclosed that the protracted chieftaincy dispute that has plagued the Teshie Traditional area would finally be laid to rest in the next few months.

According to him, the Regional House of Chiefs, in 2014, set up a three-member fact-finding committee to research into the Teshie chieftaincy dispute.

The committee completed its work about a year ago, and, according to the procedure, the Regional House of Chiefs was to send the report and names of potential candidates for the stool to the National House of Chiefs for study.

After they had finished with their study, they would give their approval and a go-ahead for the necessary procedures to commence for the selection, confinement and enstoolment of the next Teshie Chief to take place.

Even before the Regional House Chiefs could send its report, together with the names of the potential candidates to the National House of Chiefs, one of the feuding factions sent the case to court. After almost a whole year sitting, the court ruled in favour of the Regional House of Chiefs, and now his outfit is getting ready to send its committee report to the National House of Chiefs for the necessary actions to be taken.

Mr. Attipoe made the disclosure at a one-day seminar organised by his outfit to educate kingmakers and traditional leaders in the Teshie Traditional Area in the enstoolment and destoolment of chiefs and queenmothers at the office of the Regional House of Chiefs at Dodowa.

The kingmakers, traditional leaders and queenmothers were also educated on some actions they take, which lead to chieftaincy disputes.

Similar seminars have already been organised for the traditional councils of Tema, Nungua, La, Osu, Ingleshie Alata, Ga, Prampram and Teshie. Currently, there are 13 traditional councils in the Greater Accra Region, and now that the seminar has been organised for eight of them, there are five more left to complete, he explained.

He said the Teshie Traditional Council has not been inaugurated as a result of the numerous chieftaincy disputes, adding that the kingmakers are major contributors to the problems. Over three decades, kingmakers and traditional leaders in Teshie have engaged one another in a protracted chieftaincy dispute, which has claimed many lives and properties.

Countless number of committees have sat on the cases, but till date, nothing fruitful has come out of it. Mr. Attipoe described the number of chieftaincy disputes in the Greater Accra Region as alarming.

He said he inherited fifteen disputes at the time he assumed office in 2014, and eleven of the disputes are still pending.

He gave the kingmakers a two-week ultimatum to submit the names of their potential candidates for the stool to be forwarded, together with the committee’s report on the chieftaincy dispute, to the National House of Chiefs.