I Weep for Kumawu – now a Ghost town

Kumawuman, once the strongest State within the Asante Kingdom has her traditional capital Kumawu now nearly a ghost town. Kumawu in the 1950s until the late 1960s was a bit alright with vibrant economy and booming population. Now, Kumawu is a deserted town, a shadow of her former self, and without any credible economic activity going on even though Kumawuman is blessed with natural resources. As poor management can collapse any vibrant company so has poor traditional leadership ruined Kumawu beyond imagination?

I would like all Kumawuman citizens the world over to recite, ponder upon and relate the Ghana pledge – “Yen ara asase ni .....” to Kumawuman and then let their conscience be their judge. In defence of the causes that will resuscitate Kumawuman and effectively protect the stool lands that your forebears sacrificed their blood to acquire for you, almost all Kumawuman citizens are found wanting. You are all guilty of the following statement I am borrowing from Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” A stranger as I am, I have been fighting on your behalf but I hear how most of you lambast me for reasons bordering on your parochial interests or utter ignorance. Where are your rich men? Where is your once envied bravery? They are all lying, turning in their graves drenched with the sweat of regret and tears at the nonchalance and hopelessness of their offspring.

Anyway, I am revealing to most of you Kumawuman people today the three requests made by your late historic Warrior-chief Barima Tweneboa Koduah I before he offered himself as a sacrificial lamb to be slaughtered to save the then Asante Kingdom. 1) If ever Asantehene decides to, or goes to war on Kumawuman, the Asante Kingdom should collapse. 2) If ever Asantehene decides to take Kumawuman lands, believing to exercising his prerogative or otherwise, Asanteman must collapse. 3) No Kumawuman citizen must be sacrificed upon the death of Asantehene or any paramount chief in the Kingdom. It must be noted that subjects were sacrificed for the burial of Kings and chiefs in those days in accordance with Asante custom and traditions. All the three requests made on condition of invocation of oath, were accepted and are still binding.

Why have you as Kumawuman citizens then decided to give blind eye to all the dubious attempts and arrangements by Asantehene and his cohorts to plunder Kumawuman lands? The insatiable greediness, short-sightedness and selfishness by the Kumawu krontihene and the queen have enabled other chiefs with similar deplorable mentality to bring Kumawu to her knees.

I have revealed to you a secret, how you will act upon it is your own cuppa. Is Kumawuhemaa still not mentally unsound? The evil that men do lives after them.

John Fosu