Chief of great Ametafor, Nene Ogah Osuagbo 1
Chief of great Ametafor in the Osudoku Traditional Area in the Greater Accra Region Nene Ogah Osuagbo 1, who made the headlines recently for his alleged call for a weed factory in his area, has clarified his position saying he was misunderstood.
According to the traditional ruler, his call was not for government to site a weed factory in the Osudoku area as part of its flagship one district one factory policy per say but rather, draw the attention of all including government, to see the importance of certain plants like weed which have high medicinal value which can be developed for local use and export.
“I want to seek permission from you to use this platform to provoke a thought, a thought which many Ghanaians know is the obvious way to go but for fear of name-calling and populist backlash, they are unwilling to speak to it openly”.
He continued “God in his omnipotent wisdom upon creating all things found that they were good and declared that we use the properties of flora as food and medicine. Scientific research also alludes to many benefits that could be derived from harnessing and utilizing plants for food and industrial use.
Plants like Ghana hemp (marijuana) also have very high medicinal or industrial uses”.
Nene Ogah Osuagbo 1, who spoke to The Herald following the much publicized report on Monday September 2, 2019, said his statement at the 1st matriculation and white coat ceremony of the Nyarkotey College of Holistic Medicine at Tema on August 30, 2019, was to provoke a debate and also how to push the argument from just the abuse of the plant to it uses.
“The impression was not to call for one district one weed factory! I was only trying to make a point that, we have high value medicinal plants, so when we are talking of herbal medicine or alternative medicine, there is the need for us to research into these plants and develop them and put them out as medicine.
And I mentioned weed as one of such plants, that has so many valuable uses except that it is being abused so we have to separate the abuse from the nature’s creation of the plant, so that we can have benefits as in food and medicine”, he said.
He apologized for any inconvenience his comments may have caused the people of Ghana especially his Traditional Council. The chief particularly apologized to the chiefs and people of Osudoku Traditional Area and government.
“This has created a whole mess around, it wasn’t deliberate. That was not the intention. I was taken out of contest. I am sorry if I embarrassed people I didn’t intend to do that”, he said in conclusion.
