OPOKU-AFARI COMMITTEE

                   

DR. KWAME NKRUMAH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF GHANA

 THE COMMITTEES MEMBERSHIP AND TERMS OF REFERENCE

The chairman of the committee was the Appeal Commissioner, S.D. Opoku Afari. He was an ardent supporter of the CPP and planted there for this special purpose. This overtly partisan investigator was used to slander and destroy the Nayiri and Mamprusis after which he was given a pat on the back and tasked to destroy the brotherly kingdom of Dagbon. He was given all the resources needed to destroy Na Gbewaa`s legacy to project Kwame Nkrumah. In Bawku and Dagbon he created wars out of nothing and wherever he might be at the moment, he takes much of the credit for creating these crisises. 

 The other members of the Bawku committee were Nana Yaw Agyeman Badu, the Dormaahene and Lure Kanton III, the Tumu Koro, both members of the CPP. Lure Kanton III was a trusted stooge of Nkrumah in the North. He was pro-Nkrumah to the extent that he campaigned against Alidu Kanton, who was his brother and incumbent member of the Legislative Assembly, in favour of Imoro Egala who was Nkrumah’s choice. This enabled Egala to wrestle the seat from Alidu in the 1954 election. In the Ya-Na’s issue Nkrumah used another Northern chief, the Nandom-Na Polkuu Konkuu Chire to assist Opoku-Afari in the fraudulent committee. The Nandom-Na was also a staunch CPP supporter because he maintained his skin by courtesy of Nkrumah`s intervention. 

The contributions from the Dormaahene and Tumukoro were a great disservice to African tradition. Instead of protecting the integrity and dignity of the very African heritage which brought them to prominence, they responded to their stomachs and put their tails between their thighs and succumbed to the wishes of an African tyrant. Chieftaincy, an edifice of African civilization which successfully withstood the affronts of colonialism and white imperialism was being destroyed by chiefs under the pressure of a black imperialist. The partisan and bias conduct the committee became overt when the committee got directly involved in a legal tussle with Mamprugu in the aftermath of its report. 

                      TERMS OF REFERENCE  

The claim of Abugurago Azoka to have been ‘elected OR appointed’ and installed as chief was rather ambiguous. Azoka in his evidence claim that Kusasis elect their chiefs while Mamprusis appoint theirs. But the terms of reference did not specify his claim because of their evil motive. If Azoka claimed that he was elected, the committee would have been compelled to prove that election of chiefs is Kusasi tradition, that such election has happened in the past with names of contestants and winners, and that an election did take place to elect Azoka and also produce the names of those who conducted the election and certified the results. Since they could not do that they refused to specify Azoka’s claim. On the other hand, if Azoka claimed that he was appointed as chief, the committee would have been compelled to prove his eligibility, the genealogy of the skin he claims to belong, the tradition of enskinment and the more importantly the kingmaker who appointed him. 

 Azoka`s claim was therefore ambiguous because it described his installation as a chief through two mutually exclusive systems of selecting a chief. The reason was that Nkrumah’s governments left both options open to make provision for double standards in the selection of chiefs in Bawku. The new concept of election of chiefs was created to challenge the established traditional system that was used to appoint all the previous twelve Bawkunabas dating from the time Bawku was founded, just to pave way for Azoka to usurp the skin. On the other had, the traditional Mamprusi system of appointing chiefs which was described by the committee as undemocratic and dictatorial was retained to provide a lee-way for Azoka to appoint CPP supporters as canton chiefs after he was assisted to usurp the Bawku skin. 

It will be recalled that all the nineteen cantons including Bawkunaba were of equal status until they unanimously elected the Bawkunaba, Bugri Mamboda, as their Head Chief in 1931and his elevation to Divisional Chief in 1932. Accepting to be member of the electoral college that elected the Bawkunaba Head Chief did not imply that the canton chiefs had sold their birthright to the Bawku skin and were therefore subject to the outcome of any investigation on the Bawku skin. These cantons had chiefs of diverse ethnic origins, had genealogies that were not related to the Bawku skin and before then were independent of the Mamprusis of Bawku except that the Nayiri was their common Paramount Chief. They were therefore not part of the investigation and truly, none was invited as a witness or to defend his skin. But as would later be seen, Nkrumah’s government roped them in and dealt with them as though they were part of the enquiry. Injustice was therefore visited on the canton chiefs without even giving them a chance to defend their skins against any allegation or claim. Whoever thinks the matter is settled should be reminded that all the canton chiefs individually have the right to challenge deskinment of their legitimate chiefs and that will definitely happen. 

 Although the subject was titled the Bawku Affairs, the terms of reference referred to the ‘Kusasi Area’ in furtherance of its intention to spread the impact of its fraudulent report on the whole District when in fact the enquiry was strictly limited to the Bawku skin. It was also an attempt to confuse the word ‘Kusasi’ given to the district by the colonial masters after their arrival in what was known as Zotinga with the same word ‘Kusasi’ which existed as an ethnic group centuries before the arrival of the colonialist. This was done right from the onset of the enquiry to enable them fraudulently use the two interchangeably. The psychological impact of This on any casual reader was obviously that; if the area is called Kusasi area why should anybody else who is not a Kusasi be the chief of the area. 

To conceal the genuine reason why Mamprusis are landowners and chiefs in Bawku, the committee surreptitiously ignored the history of Bawku and the Bawku skin in its report. As has been mentioned in the earlier chapters, Na Gbewaa was the ancestor of Mamprusis who first settled in Bawku District. He lived and died in Pusiga in the Bawku District. Na Gbewaa is the main historical figure in the history of Northern Ghana and his history and that of his state is explicable with reference to places which can still be located and individuals who founded lineages and families still in position of authority. There no history of any personality in the North who pre-dates Na Gbewaa. The only enemy forces he encountered in Bawku area were the Gruma’s and Bissas, the tribe Kusasi was then not in existence. 

 Na Gbewaa’s children founded the tri-dominion of Mamprugu, Dagbon/Nanumba and Moshi which extended in continuity from Burkina Fasso in the North to Dagbon/Nanumba in the South. Mamprugu was sandwiched between the two other states. It had the Yanga province to the East and which is now split between Burkina Fasso and Togo; the Kusasi enclave to the North and which is now part of Burkina Fasso; and the vassal states to the West as far as Bouna in La Cote Ivoire. Provincial Mamprugu was demarcated by the imposing feature of the Gambaga scarp and the Red Volta River into Zozugu, Zotinga and Moaduri. Bawku is one of the settlements in Zotinga. By the time the Europeans arrived, there were six, actually seven, Mamprusi towns with chiefs evenly distributed in Zotinga and Tingurnaba at Pusiga plus other smaller settlements. The Kusasis were acepahlous and lived in Yuiga, Biengu and Zawga all now in the Burkinabe territory, under the protection of these Mamprusi chiefs. Kusasis from their ancestral homeland also migrated into Zotinga and established small settlements.

 When the British occupied Mamprugu one of the early measures used to impose their authority over the Nayiri was renaming parts of the kingdom. Zotinga became known as Kusasi and Moaduri as Frafra which was a word coined by the British for all the people living in Moaduri. The word ‘Kusasi’ was imposed on Zotinga without any study on the ethnicity of the province. Kusasi was erroneously defined by colonialist on the basis on a creole language that was spoken in the area and not on the real ethnicity. All except the six Mamprusi speaking towns were counted as Kusasis. Even the Mamprusis of Na Gbewaa’s Pusiga, Gumbo, Kuka, Missiga, Nayoko, Gumyoko, Kpatia, Boko and the Dagbandurisi were all counted as Kusasi by the British. Their concept of ‘Kusasi’ district did not include the eastern part of the present Bawku traditional area because that part was initially German territory until 1922 when it became the mandated area. 

 When Syme and Rattray were commissioned after their successful occupation to compile the history of the district and the North respectively, they realized that Zotinga contained many ethnic groups living among the Mamprusi chiefdoms. They quickly dismissed their earlier notion of Kusasi majority in Zotinga but woefully failed to revert to its earlier and more appropriate name. Syme wrote in the first paragraph of the first chapter of his book entitled, the Kusasis a Short History that “the name Kusasi is really very vague when referring to the people of Agolle, and not always correct in the case of Toendema. For it is constantly used to include people who are not true Kusasi at all”. This political blunder was exploited by Nkrumah to divide the people of Bawku just to gain political dominance over the NPP. Bawku is therefore not synonymous with ‘Kusasi’ or ‘Kusasi area’ because the name of the town has never been changed and the chief has remained Bawkunaba since the inception of the skin. The error in terms of reference was intentional to confuse people who know little about Bawku as a town, Kusasi as an ethnic identity and Kusasi area as a colonial left-over. 

 Since the whole enquiry had to do with legitimacy to the Bawku skin, the committee was expected to give an impeccable background of the institution of chieftaincy in Bawku, yet it failed to do that. Na Gbewaa introduced the institution of chieftaincy in Northern Ghana. His children and descendants spread the concept in other areas within their jurisdiction in the North. Tingurnaba became the caretaker of Pusiga after the sons of Na Gbewaa left Pusiga following the death of their father. The first Mamprusi chief in the rest of Zotinga (Bawku area) was Gumbonaba.He was the first to return to Zotinga from Zozugu and established his chiefdom to the west of the White Volta River. The first chief to the east of the river was Sinnebaganaba. These two chiefs were followed by Bindurnaba, Bawkunaba, Tanganaba, Teshienaba and Worikamdana in that order. All their towns were founded by discovery and tactically sited to dominate the Zotinga area. Migrants of the various ethnic groups settled within the area under the protection of these chiefs. As these settlements developed leaders known as Kambonabas were appointed from amongst the settlers to serve as local administrators and linkmen to the Mamprusi chiefs. There was no chieftaincy dispute in the area. Chieftaincy is not a part of Kusasi culture and there had no chiefs even in their ancestral homes at Yuiga, Biengu and Zawga. Besides that, Kusasis have been close allies of Mamprusis since their tribe came into existence and owed their existence to Mamprusi protection. The Bissas were the main enemy forces in the area but they were more interested in dominating the trade route than in chieftaincy which was also not part of their culture. Such was the situation until the arrival of the Europeans. 

After the arrival of the British, there was a wave of change and reorganization of the institution of chieftaincy in the whole North including Mamprugu. The British extended chieftaincy to the ethnic groups that were acepahlous before their arrival. In Zotinga, they recommended the creation of thirteen new canton skins to add to the six Mamprusi cantons that were already established in the area. This was the beginning of chieftaincy in Kusasi history. The new chiefs were appointed without any ethnic tension except in Ndebugre’s home village of Timoni where an issue arose between the Talensi founders and Ndebugre’s people, the Kasenas, but which was amicably settled. The Nayiri selected new canton chiefs from within the various cantons and these were members of the first arrivals, Kambonabas, distinguished opinion leaders and Tindanas in a few villages. The Nayiri did not impose a Mamprusi chief over any ethnic group and all the canton chiefs, both old and new, were of equal status and enskinned by the Nayiri. It must be noted that the old Mamprusi canton chiefs were not even made seniors to their new counterparts except that those whose cantons were curved out of the old ones continued to respect their benefactors on traditional issues. 

Then in 1931 the colonial government constituted these canton chiefs into an electoral college and asked them to elect a Head Chief from among themselves. The Bawkunaba, Bugri Mamboda, unanimously won the election, conducted by the British officials to become the first Head Chief of the Bawku Traditional Area. It was reported that Kusanaba, the loser, was as happy as Bugri the winner and Syme stated in his book that Kusanaba had told the British ‘point blank’ that he was not prepared to even become Head Chief of Toendema. The election was therefore conducted peacefully and all were satisfied with the outcome. The Bawkunaba was elevated to a Divisional Chief in 1932 by the Nayiri and then vested with the traditional authority to enskin the canton chiefs in Zotinga. It must be clearly understood that this maiden election was not to enskin a Bawkunaba neither was it to elevate Bawkunaba to a Divisional Chief. The appointment of Bugri Mamboda as Bawkunaba was done in 1921 by the Nayiri and his elevation to Divisional Chief was equally carried out by the Nayiri in 1932. This was the first and last election of a Head Chief in the area and it was not for enskinment but to select a leader of all the canton chiefs in the district, purely for administrative and not traditional purposes. They did not elect Bugri Mamboda as a Divisional Chief; it was the Nayiri who appointed him as such. The colonialist propaganda in the run-off to this election overtly showed that it was among other things a ploy to make a Kusasi the Head Chief over the Mamprusis as a means of reducing the Nayiri’s influence. If there was an atom of truth in Azoka’s claim, the British would definitely have used it against Mamprusis, unfortunately for them, Azoka’s family had not yet arrived in Bawku at the time. Abugurago Azoka was at the time in Pusiga taking care of Pusiganaba stable. 

The Bawku skin was established by Na Atabea, the tenth Nayiri before his death in 1741/42. The Bawkunaba as an elected Head Chief happened in 1931; and Bawkunaba was enskinned as a Divisional Chief by the Nayiri in 1932.Therefore, Bawkunaba as a canton chief, Head Chief and Divisional Chief occurred at different times, have different histories and traditional backgrounds and should never be investigated without considering these distinctions. If truly, there were any one chief or head chief for all Kusasis, such a chief should have been living in Yuiga, Biengu or Zawga or wherever he happened to be he must have jurisdiction over these Kusasi ancestral homes as pertains in other kingdoms. Such a Kusasi chief had never existed even to date. The committee violated its obligation by shamelessly ignoring these crucial facts and sold its conscience to the devil right from the onset of the enquiry. 

 With such history, in 1957 and two-hundred and fifteen (215) years after the death of the founder of Bawku, Azoka made an anecdotal claim that his ‘grandfather’ was the chief of Bawku before the arrival of Mamprusis in Bawku and government set up a committee to enquire into the claim. How old was his grandfather when he was chief, where did he live and for how long did he rule? How did his family get to Bawku? Azoka’s claim was clearly a political concoction, otherwise it had no merit and there was therefore no basis for the enquiry. There was no chieftaincy problem or Mamprusi-Kusasi enmity until Nkrumah came to power and twisted the facts to divide the people of Zotinga. 

To be continued……………………………….