We're not installing new Ya Naa – Andanis

The youth wing of the Andani royal family in Yendi has refuted claims that they are planning to install the sitting regent, Kampakuya Naa Yakubu Abdulai, as the new Overlord and King of Dagbon.

According to the youth, any report from the Abudus to the contrary, must be treated as false and discarded.

At an emergency press briefing at Yendi, the Abudu family called on government, the Municipal and Regional Security Councils, to urgently intervene and block the Andanis from accessing the royal mausoleum to carry out the coronation, so as to forestall a repeat of the 2002 war between the two families.

Disclosing their intent to resist the process, Mumuni Yussif, spokesman for the Abudu youth said their side should not be blamed if government and the local security council fail to stop the Andanis from carrying out the “unthinkable”.

Responding to this claim on 12 Live on Class91.3FM on Friday, 3 August 2018, spokesperson for the Andani youth, Bashiru Alhassan Daballi, said: “It’s a big lie, we’re not planning anything like that. More so, it is not the Andani family who are entitled to enskinned or install a Ya Naa, it is the custodian of Dagbon…so, it’s a big lie.”

Mr Daballi, however, warned that the Andanis will protect the Gbewaa palace from any attack the Abudus may have planned should that be the case.

He said: “We’re not planning any installment of a new Ya Naa but let me let them know that if they are thinking that what happened in 2002, if they have any plan of that sort, they should better rethink because 2002 will not be like 2018.

“In 2002, when the security failed to protect the life of Ya Naa and several others, this time round they should not attempt anything like that because we will protect the Gbewaa palace if there is any attack, and let me tell them, this time round, it will not be limited only in Yendi, if they think if they attack the Gbewaa palace the whole Dagbon will be quiet, no, it’s going to be throughout Dagbon and they are going to regret it, so, they shouldn’t attempt it.”

In 2002, Ya Naa Yakubu Andani II, King of Dagbon, the traditional kingdom of the Dagomba people in northern Ghana, was assassinated at Yendi by people suspected to belong to the Abudu family when clashes broke out between the two feuding Gates.

For 600 years, the Abudu and Andani clans, named after two sons of the ancient Dagbon King Ya Naa Yakubu I, cordially rotated control of the kingdom.

Since January 2014, a regent who was installed in 2006 has acted as sovereign of the kingdom until a new ruler is chosen to occupy the skins of Yendi.

The King of Asante, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II is leading a committee of Eminent traditional leaders, to find a lasting solution to the feud between the two factions.