Thirty years of deception?

This is mind-boggling, if it is true!!! For 30 years, what seemed a straightforward, officially backed usurpation was actually never legally approved or formalized in the laws of the Republic of Ghana? It was a lie all along? Dr? Charles Puoure Puobe Imoru (Imoru), the current Nandom Naa, was never gazetted – period. Government officials knew it; politicians knew it, civil servants knew it and the perpetrators of this darkly deceptive maneuver themselves knew it, but no one, not even those in power and with the responsibility to do something about it, did nothing. Instead, they exploited the status quo for whatever it was worth to them and for each of the groups listed above their complicity was tied to a dark and selfish political and monarchical agenda. That agenda, sacrificed the lives of individuals and the socio-economic aspirations of an entire community. These are the allegations among many, contained in revelations by individuals close to faltering but on-going Family Unity Talks in the Nandom Royal Family, and documentary evidence, meant to resolve the decades old chieftaincy dispute in Nandom. Yours truly can report correctly, that currently, desperate maneuvers are being made to retroactively gazette Charles Puoure Puobe Imoru as Nandom Naa. Yes, this is being done in 2015.

In a National House of Chiefs letter dated 27th September, 2005 (almost ten years ago) with Reference No. NH/UWR.2/V.1/45 and signed by the then Regional Registrar - Research, the letter responds to a Search Application filed on 20th September, 2005. The said National House of Chiefs letter is detailed in its response, but I will focus for now on the matters relevant to the alleged gazetting or lack thereof of Imoru as Nandom Naa.

1) As to whether the Chieftaincy Declaration Forms (CD Forms) of Imoru were forwarded to the National House of Chiefs from the Upper-West Regional House of Chiefs as required, the letter’s response was “No, the Forms were submitted to the National House of Chiefs FROM THE OFFICE OF THE PNDC.” (Emphasis mine).

This is instructive. The proper protocol in the gazette process requires the traditional area, upon the selection and enskinment/instoolment of a new chief, to submit the CD Forms of the chief-elect to the National House of Chiefs THROUGH the Regional House of Chiefs. This was not done in Imoru’s case. Instead, the CD Forms came directly from the Office of the PNDC, with instructions I suppose …???

2) The letter also states that the CD Forms were received on 11th June, 1992 from the Office of the PNDC, that is, 8 years after a radio announcement by the government imposing Imoru on the Family as Nandom Naa. So between 1985 and 1992, the Nandom dispute was allowed to become a political football, kicked and bandied about by multiple politicians, each with an agenda, but all somehow “united” in their goal of exploiting the dispute and prolonging it unnecessarily, through decrees such as the Abatement of Chieftaincy Proceedings Law.

3) The letter affirms further that (contrary to established protocol as in point (1) above), the National Chieftaincy Secretariat (the institution through which the government gazettes chiefs, along with the National House of Chiefs, did not gazette Imoru as Nandom Naa. It was the PNDC Government which gazetted Charles Imoru on 14th June 1986 (LGB dated 20/6/1986 – the gazette notation associated with it) through a radio announcement. Attempts to confirm the existence of LGB 20/6/1986 indicate it is non-existent. Efforts to get documentary proof of entry into the gazette yielded nothing. Still I recall Imoru’s opponents derogatively called him a “radio chief”; and now I understand why.

So, it turns out that all these maneuvers were superficial. None of the actions were properly carried out or carried out all, and none of the information was actually entered into the National Gazette of Chiefs. For one of the oldest institutions in Ghana such as the National House of Chiefs is, it is highly unlikely that they made a simple error. Clearly, other forces were at work, which explains the brisk new maneuvers to legitimize the lie after the fact. Obviously, the so-called gazetting, now strongly alleged to be false may have been done, if at all, BEFORE (emphasis mine) Imoru’s CD Forms, the most important documents required for the gazette to take effect, were submitted to the National House of Chiefs. No wonder these new frenzied moves stink so much.

4) Further, search questions in the letter referenced herein, centered on other pretenders to the Nandom Skin at the time (Mr. C. Y. Dery, Mr. Gbeckatuur Boro, Rear Admiral Dzang); especially, those about Dzang received a “Not Applicable” response throughout. I was curious about this one because Dzang was Imoru’s most visible opponent, and I had written in detail about it previously. So I dug further. Dzang was first recognized by the Upper-West Regional House of Chiefs and its President the late Naa Yelpoe at the time. It was there that Dzang submitted his CD Forms to be processed as required and subsequently submitted to the National House of Chiefs. Apparently, Dzang’s CD Forms never made it to the National House of Chiefs, or did they? If they did, what is “Not Applicable” about them? What were the then government and the Registrar’s vague responses in that regard, hiding about or from Dzang?

It is sufficient to conclude, based on letter NH/UWR.2/V.1/45, that highly irregular processes, as well as diabolical schemes, were unleashed by powerful people in government to subvert the Nandom chieftaincy, and also to deceive even the person the government of the day supported, ostensibly Imoru, into believing he had been gazetted – through a radio broadcast. This is insulting; for all intents and purposes government officials must have considered Imoru an idiot who could be easily fooled. They were right, at least for he believed it for the last 30 years until now; or may be, he wasn’t an idiot after all, and knew it all along. Some names of these deceptive, conniving functionaries immediately come to mind. Hint – one of them has a long history with most of our governing/poitical life, jumping from one political appointment to another, notoriously self-centred and obtuse; this one is an obvious guess, but he is not military. More on him and his role anon.

Those who have followed my articles know that I have written copiously about the Nandom chieftaincy. What has often fascinated me are the virulent maneuverings around a traditional institution most people consider unprogressive on the one hand, and on the other, the flippant dismissiveness of the same institution by politicians who nevertheless expend enormous resources both private and public, through political gamesmanship and conduct unbefitting of their political stature and office, to prop it up. In the 30 years that this lie has persisted, every time there are elections in Nandom, politicians pretty much carpet-bomb Nandom, a small town of some 22,000-plus people, with all these convoluted, political divisive and devious messages; and the Nandom Chieftaincy is often at the centre of the election victory strategy. All the past and current MPs of Nandom have exploited it, and why? The answer is perhaps historical, in the deeper trenches of colonialism, when the British, through its heinous system of Indirect Rule, maintained certain “useless” chiefs to serve their whims as needed. One way or another, everyone has their uses and it appears our new indigenous leaders learnt from the colonialists well, that chieftaincy, however useless one perceives it to be, and however unprogressive and illegitimate its occupant might be, does have its uses politically and selfishly; in fact, the more useless the better. It is perhaps this philosophy which informed this 30-year lie to prop up Imoru, by persons whose shades of colour are as varied as a spectrum from space. Thirty years down, is propping up Imoru still that vital to those political interests? Perhaps not, which is why he is left to fend for himself together with a motley band of conspirators, who seek to re-package another lie and foist it upon Nandom. Shame on politicians, shame!!!

My fascination has also led me into a complicated tapestry of controversy, diabolical machinations and darkly disturbing family histories from the Nandom Royal Family, which is not exclusive to Nandom. Yet who could have known, that the fight over the Nandom chieftaincy these thirty long years was all about nothing – a lie, and that the sustenance of this lie could be traced right back to the doorsteps of government and public officials in the PNDC era, who lied unashamedly and knowingly, using the machinery of state. If the allegation that Imoru was never gazetted, albeit that his ascendancy to be Nandom Naa was illegitimate, is true, then it puts an even darker and complex spin on a chieftaincy dispute that outsiders thought was merely fratricidal. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Again, the question is, why were the stakes higher in the Nandom dispute? Are they still that high? You bet!

The early days of the Nandom chieftaincy were times when radio broadcasts were powerful and important. In today’s world, that would amount to nothing, given the hordes of radio stations nationwide. It was those days in which a say-so by radio was a say-so, especially, if it was a government say-so. Remember one dawn of June 1979, a radio broadcast held the entire nation spell-bound and changed the course of Ghanaian history forever? Similarly, a radio broadcast on December 31, 1981 again changed the trajectory of our nation. In the Acheampong era, One O’clock News was similarly powerful - the exclusive preserve for government dismissals. Those were indeed the powerful days of the “radio broadcast”. In like manner, a radio announcement in 1986 imposed Charles Puoure Puobe Imoru on the people of Nandom, by no less a government than the one which itself changed the country’s history with a radio broadcast. But in the Nandom case in 1986, it was considered a reversible simple faux pas; and that since it wasn’t made after the new Nandom Naa was duly gazetted, following appropriate customary rites and painstaking official verifications and protocols followed (CD Forms). Thus, because government officials knew that Imoru’s ascendancy was illegitimate to start with, and was being fiercely contested, and that perhaps those against his ascendancy were right, and yet that there was some benefit from Imoru’s ascendancy (as a “political push-around”) rather than the Family-approved and elected prince, the government and its functionaries deployed this diabolical radio announcement, and with it a lie that has now persisted for thirty years. Indeed, ongoing investigations point to a prominent Wala man as the person solely responsible for scuttling the Nandom chieftaincy, because of an old grudge he bears the Nandom Traditional Area when he was a kid. Yes, it goes that far back – and it is a childhood gripe. If this is true, he used public institutions and state resources to settle personal scores. Whether those scores are legitimate is immaterial; as a citizen he has no right to use state resources as a personal kitty. How do such people get away with acts like these? More on the subject as investigations continue. For now, Dzang is dead, but his role in the Nandom chieftaincy cannot be wished away. The truth is hard to bury or deny; it always has a way of manifesting itself. And so five years into Dzang’s demise and here we are facing what is possibly the core lie in the Nandom chieftaincy dispute and shady maneuvers being cooked to hide it further. “In the corrupted currents of this world….”

There is another worrying dimension to this 30-year deception – the role of government in chieftaincy matters. Yes, I know that chiefs are not supposed to play politics, according to our Constitution, neither should governments involve the institutions in politics. Yet, they are the two most political institutions in Ghana, bar none. The sooner Ghanaians recognized that, the better. Show me one government of Ghana who never had a hand in some chieftaincy matter? None. Zero. And it makes you wonder whether to thank or curse government for meddling in chieftaincy. Here is a government that did everything against the law because IT (government) WAS THE LAW (emphasis mine): it subverted the process in the National House of Chiefs, it propped up the wrong person and thus forced him onto a Family and a people who rejected him. In the 30 years that Imoru has stayed on the Skin, he has visited several atrocities on individuals and groups in Nandom either by himself or in complicity with politicians from the area; he has diverted financial contributions, seized cattle and other resources from poor citizens, usually on the flimsiest of excuses; he has attempted to obstruct the course of justice even in the law courts in land cases. Do you thank or curse government for this kind of chief? Elsewhere Imoru would not be negotiating any agreements, and neither will his accomplices. The government functionaries and politicians will not be at the beach either. They’d all be in jail if these allegations were proven true – and that’s when to thank government for protecting its citizens from the wickedness of individual citizens. On the other hand, should the people of Nandom thank government, that willfully or not, it did not gazette Imoru, and by that failure, a usurper was not allowed to make it into the National Gazette of Chiefs? This is what is problematic about our politics – our politicians are dubious about their interests; they want to present themselves as perfect, when they are not. They should be bold to state their interest and then engage competitively and openly. If they win, fine; but if they lose, they should go quietly into the night. But this “be right by all means and on both sides” is the central albatross of politics in Ghana. Politics is dirty; our politics is filthy. No one can be right all the time; it is human to err and politicians who cause all this mess need to learn to say “I am sorry”.

Investigations by this this writer, indicate that something is about to happen, over which no mortal has any control. Still, there are vigorous attempts to shape the context in which that event occurs when it occurs, by key individuals such as Dr. Edmund Delle, Charles Puoure Puobe Imoru himself, Mr. David Kpelle and lately one Charles Cobb and a Fr. Koyah. You’ve just got to love the animal called man for its ingenuity! The context which this band of the worst example of pretentious homo sapiens wants to shape is more transcendent than the 30-year lie described above; and the gazetting of Charles Imoru as Nandom Naa post facto is key to how they shape that event. The maneuvers, for want of a better expression, are admirable, even for such malevolent plans. A quid pro quo agreement is in the works, to get Charles Puoure Puobe Imoru, to apologize to the Royal Family of Nandom, in return for Royal Family approval so that Government may be prevailed upon to gazette him - a “scratch-my-back, I scratch-your-back” proposition for both institutions (government and the Nandom Chieftaincy); and also for two individuals – Imoru and Dr. Edmund Delle. Dr. Delle will end up as Nandom Naa after Imoru dies (no one says he is dying, but he will, one day), if Dr. Delle himself survives Imoru. Otherwise there is a further agreement in the event that Dr. Delle precedes Imoru in death, to pass on the chieftaincy to Richard Delle. Family sentiment is not against Richard Delle per se; it is the method by which he wants to become Nandom Naa which stinks. The Family contends that Dr. Delle is leading Richard Delle into a dungeon, populated by “snakes and foxes”. Richard Delle may well become one more casualty of this long running fratricidal détente; a true blend of the old and the new.

This quid pro quo agreement has many significant flaws, among them the legitimacy of Imoru himself, as to whether he is actually a descendant of Naa Chiir I, or not. If this is true, potentially, it could open a whole new can of worms. Not all Family members are talking yet, but there seems to concensus that Imoru is not actually a descendant of Chiir. This potentially could blow up any claims he has made to the Nandom Skin, because there is strong initial evidence, that this may in fact be linked directly to why the Family was uncompromising in years gone by, to support the ascendancy of an illegitimate person to the Nandom Skin.

Still, assuming the above isn’t the case, the great question in this quagmire remains - should Charles Puoure Puobe Imoru be allowed to apologize and should he, according to the quid pro quo, be gazetted afterwards in order to bring this sad chapter of the Nandom chieftaincy to final resolution? The peace, stability and development of the Nandom Traditional Area is supreme; it cannot afford another 30 years of lies, deception and stagnation. But it does not resolve the fundamental question as to whether this solution prevents another diabolical maneuver from taking place again. This is why the Dr. Delle angle cum quid pro quo are very disturbing. Can Nandom ever have a straightforward selection of a Nandom Naa without these conniving, malicious schemes? Perhaps not. The wheels of a new scheme are underway, and at the center of it are five people: Imoru, Dr. Delle, Richard Delle, Charles Cobb and Rev. Koyah. It appears even that Richard Delle and Charles Cobb are being manipulated because available information indicates that the other three are keeping certain information secret from these two, including two important documents, one of which is a Questionnaire and the other a Letter. If the scheme succeeds, then Nandom shall we say is destined to monarchical strife indefinitely.

Beyond the deeply traditional, familial and customary question, there is a moral one too. The quid pro quo is like questioning the status of Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus. Should Judas be in heaven if he repented from his sin? Do you think Judas is in hell? After all, for Christians, he betrayed God’s son, an act which constitutes the crime of crimes before God in Christian eyes. That should earn him a one-way ticket to the fires of hell, right, if we humans had our way? But God’s in charge here, and only He decides on such matters, according to the Good Book. So, what about the Almighty God’s Grace and Mercy? Do Christians not believe also that God’s Mercy is transcendent and extremely compassionate beyond human realms? If that is correct, banishing Judas to hell’s fire by humans amounts to questioning the supreme Power, Mercy and Grace of God, and who are we to question God? Therefore should one be surprised if Judas is actually in heaven because he truly repented and God forgave him? Worse yet, God could forgive him for whatever reason and not owe mankind an explanation at all. After all, He is God. Still, if that is the case, how does that prevent another Judas from emerging, knowing that no matter what, God Almighty has a heart pure enough to forgive even the most egregious of crimes, like betraying the Father’s Son? Dizzy yet? See, precedent can be a double-edged knife, and we will simply keep going in circles. It’s like a Ferris Wheel.

In a human world where mankind tries to shape things to a context, the tiny difference is true repentance. As mortals when and how do we know if someone is truly repentant? We seldom do, especially when facts are hard to come by. So we are left to our best circumstantial judgments. In this case, I think, it is when there is no ulterior gain to the act of repentance. Unfortunately, in Charles Puoure Puobe Imoru’s case, the ulterior motive is getting gazetted; in Dr. Edmund Delle’s case, it is trying to conclude a “devil’s pact”, both of which do not sit well with many members of the Royal Family. Perhaps, a transparent and very public act of repentance might work, I don’t know; just guessing here, for even that would prepare the next usurper for an even bigger offence, knowing that a more public admission of error would automatically mean absolution. Then the saga continues. Ferris Wheel. Revolutions non-stop. Royal Family of Nandom, are you listening? Watch this space….

Francis Dery

Email: dery.francis@yahoo.com