Effutu Stool Affair: Ex-Minister joins issue

A former minister of state, Dr. Ayirebi Acquah, has blamed the ongoing chieftaincy dispute in the Effutu state of Winneba on the 1977 ruling of the Judicial Committee of the Central Regional House of Chiefs headed by Boa Amponsam, saying "until the suit pending before the Swedru High Court challenging the validity of that judgment is established, the disharmony in the area is bound to continue."

Speaking in an interview with the Chronicle, on Thursday last week following the paper's publication on the Effutu's chieftaincy affair, Dr. Acquah, who is a native of Effutu, said it was unfortunate for the Omanhene, Nana Kobina Ghartey, to have told the Chronicle that the case is "a dead and gone case."

"I am saying this because the validity of Boa Amponsam's judgment is still pending at the court." "An aspect of a challenge of that ruling is still pending before the Central Regional House of Chiefs," he asserted.

It could be recalled that the protracted chieftaincy dispute in the Effutu state between the Tuafo Asafo Number One Company headed by Nana Ayirebi Acquah on one hand and the Dentsifo Asafo Number Two headed by the Gharteys on the other, reached its pinnacle in 1997, when a case was sent before the Swedru High Court challenging the validity of a judgment, which was given in 1977 by the judicial committee of the Central Regional House of Chiefs headed by Nana Boa Amponsem.

In that case the issues were that the Gharteys had been given all the powers in the Effutu state single-handedly. It was said that the Gharteys, complaining of their right to have performed a sanctification ritual that would have completed the destoolment of one Nana Ghartey V, who was destooled, filed a petition to the judicial committee of the Regional House of Chiefs.

But in the course of deliberation, the committee opened the floodgates into the Winneba chieftaincy dispute, particularly at the time when the Ayirebi Acquah family was not privy to the suit.

But in a telephone interview last week, the Omanhene Nana Ghartey denied knowledge of any faction in Winneba known as the Ayirebi Acquah and that the Gharteys were the only royal family in the Effutu traditional area.

However, Dr. Ayirebi Acquah stated that it was unfortunate for the Omanhene to have told the Chronicle that factions do not exist in the area, when in fact "there are the Ayirebi Acquah family and the Omans on one hand and the Gharteys on the other."

"It is historically, legally and traditionally wrong to say that there is no faction known as the Ayirebi Acquah family in Effutu," Dr. Acquah said.

He went on: " My reason is that when you are talking about Effutu stool, you are talking about the paramount stool and not the ancestor stool.

That stool was not in the district when Winneba was founded. What Winneba had was an ancestor stool for the Effutu deity.

It was only in the reign of Bortsi Amponfo in the 1700s and onwards that the notion of paramountcy occurred to the people."

Bortsi Amponfo, according to Dr. Acquah, is the direct ancestor of the Ayirebi Acquah family, which, he claimed, produced two warrior kings in the persons of King Henry Acquah I and Ayirebi Acquah III in the area.

On the substitution motion ruling, which has produced violent threats from the Effutu youth, Dr. Acquah stated that it would be in the interest of the Effutu people if the court were to establish the validity of the 1977 ruling before any further legal suit.

He therefore appealed to the youth of Effutu to take a holistic approach to the issue at stake and avoid violent means.