31/01/2024
BONO IN FOCUS (PART II)
The (Bono) Chiefs first came to Kumasi first to be inducted into the Confederacy and they returned for Confederacy meetings. It is sad that such a basic constitutional exercise as swearing an oath for induction into a Confederacy by Bono Chiefs can be interpreted to mean the swearing an oath to Sikadwa. It did not matter whether Bono Chiefs swore by Bible, Quran or Mponponsuo the meaning was the same that Bono Chiefs came to Kumasi to be inducted into a new experimental administrative structure called Indirect Rule –Ashanti Confederacy.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s crime according to the judgment of Asante was the division of Ashanti (British colony) into Ashanti and Bono Ahafo regions. In my lifetime, I have seen Greater Accra curved out of Eastern. I am told communities of Ga-Dangdme’s are split on either side of Eastern region and Greater Accra regions but I have not for once heard Ga Mantse make such angry tirade against any government for dividing his citizens neither has Ga Mantse claimed the right to install Ga Chiefs in Eastern Region. My Ewe friends have told me some war weary Ashantis crossed over to Eweland to seek for refuge and protection. They were offered land and a sanctuary to stay. President Akuffo Addo's government has split Volta into Oti Region and Volta Region but again you don’t hear this level of anger from Volta Chiefs. In the northern region, communities of Dagomba, Mamprusi and Gonja have lived for many years as one region without any problems and now the region has been divided into three separate regions but they still live in peace. Except anyone can explain this to me I don’t know what is this thing about Manhyia and their complexities about their place in Ghana.
Now I want to devote the rest of this chapter to Nana Obiri Boahen, a man who has devoted his entire legal professing in defense of Otumfuor claims on Bonoman. Nana Obiri Boahen I’ve heard you say on many platforms that Bonoman belongs to Asanteman. That Bono towns like Berekum, Nkoranza, Japekrom, Domasi Number2, and others are Ashanti towns so they swear allegiance to Asantehene. Well the last time I checked, sections of Assins from central region are Ashantis and there are still some communities in Northern Ghana that have been linked to Ashanti but I have not seen such level of arrogant display of power and entitlement shown by Asantehene in Berekum the other day. Was it because Berekum is in Bono? In your shameless defense of Asanteman, do you know the Tano-Subin villages you have spend your legal profession defending are sadly not Ashantis but Bono Techiman villages/natives. Since you have chosen to sell your conscience for favors and pennies from Asanteman, let me tell you a little history about my Bono Techiman people. This is how the following Tano-Subin (Techiman) villages came into being.
Offuman-after one of many Techiman – Ashanti wars Techiman state left the land and sought refuge with Bonohene in Gyaman now in La Cote I’voire. When word got out after some time that Ashanti has been distracted with another war with a southern state, Techiman people felt safe to come back to their homes. On their trek back to their communities, a section of Forikrom families choose to set up a village and make it a new home that is today Offuman. Since they are the same families as Oforikrom the royals of both villages can and do inherit each other’s stools even today. Or if I told you that the man Nana Takyi Fri who founded Techiman also set up three other villages; Tanoboase, Boankron and Tuobodum. How about if I told you Tanoso (Techiman) is/was a village built by Bonohene Kwakye Ameyaw I( 1712-1740) for one of his wives Nana Afua Owusuaa. Every Ashanti living in any of these villages is a migrant for your information. I left out Buoyem another one of the Tano-Subin villages for last because Buoyem has such a unique historical relevance for Techiman / Bono people. There will not be a city, municipality and now a capital town called Techiman if not for events that took place in this village now a town called Buoyem. Techiman would have been like any of the other towns in Tano-Subin had it not been the history of Bouyem itself.
Folks in 1722-1723 Asantehene Opoku Ware I attacked and destroyed the Bono kingdom's capital called Bonomanso in a surprise attack. In panic the Bono people fled to safety in faraway lands, some fled as far south as to Osu in Accra. If you go to Osu today and ask the Gas to show you the Gas of Techiman extraction they will show you who they are. Nana Kwakye Ameyaw I the (King) or Bonohene and his household were taken to safety a nearby settlement of Amoma now in the Nkoranza North district. His subjects later came across these massive cave systems in the nearby forest where they thought will be an ideal place to house the King and his royal treasures. His family was moved into the secluded caves called Bouyem (in the belly of the rock). After his safety was reasonable guaranteed, the King then asked one of his nephews Nana Takyia Ameyaw to join the Takyi Fri family in Techiman to try and attract back all Bono Manso citizens who were scattered across the land. This is how Techiman was systematically rebuilt back into the city it is today. So for a long time and even now on occasions, Techiman Chiefs were nominated from Bouyem palace because Techimanhene is the nephew of Bouyemhene. This is the land and people that Nana Obiri Boahene has spent his whole life defending as Asantehene’s property. Why these massive caves have not been developed into a museum and a tourist center to tell the history of the Bono people is a travesty and a dereliction of duty on Techiman Traditional Council.
No wonder they are telling our history from Kumasi spiced with lies and distortions. But how can anyone blame Manhyia when our own leaders are not telling the Bono story to the citizens. I was taken through those caves when I was only four years. These villages are among a total of nine villages that Otumfor Osei Mensah Asibi Bonsu seized from Techiman in 1818 on suspicion that the gods in the villages were the source of the power and supremacy of Techiman state. This is a story for another day. How Osei Bonsu seized the villages and pass on supervision over them to some Kumasi sub chiefs to covert the gods in them for the protection of Asanteman. Do you how Tano Akomfo (deities) are a common feature around Asantehene whenever there is important state functions at Asanteman. Sadly it is the descendants of the Kumasi sub Chiefs brought in to live among the natives are the very people Asantehene Nana Osei Tutu II and Opoku Ware II before him is busily elevating to status of Omanhene that is causing such internecine communal violence in Tano-Subin.
Tano-Subin problems could have been relegated as a footnote to the many security challenges of the nation if not the destruction of lives and properties it brings on innocent people.
I grew up in Wenchi in the household of Nana Kwame Attakora. In the same compound we lived were two children of the Ashantihene installed Chief of Offuman Nana Kwaku Duah sent there to live with the old man. One weekend in 1983 Akoto and her sister invited us to come with them to Offuman for the annual Yam festival. Thank God none of us went with them on that trip. Eye witness account is murky but I am told as the festivities went along something happened between the Techiman natives and Nana Kwaku Duah family and supporters. Sensing danger, the Chief and his supporters retreated back to his palace but the crowd followed them and when they got to the palace, they formed a perimeter around the compound spread it inflammable material and it ablaze. I am told family members who attempted to escape were clubbed and forced back to be incinerated into a gruesome horrible death that still haunts me to this day.
Just recently, two months ago, the Asantehene installed an imposter Chief at Tanoso (Techiman) which is one of the Tano-Subin villages. The Techiman natives got angry and went out to set fire on the house of the new Chiefs. Thankfully there were no casualties because the family anticipated some violence and had evacuated the town a day before the swearing in. The town of Tuobodom is always on a state of threat of violence of war between the Bono Techiman natives and their Ashanti imposed Chief. Only last month Otumfuor Nana Osei Tutu II defied any due process of the law in a case that was before a high court and installed an imposter Chief in Sampa. In the gun running battle that followed, eight people received gun-shot wounds, one fatal. This man (Otumfor Osei Tutu II) wants to build a 21st century empire on the back for Bonoman. This is an appeal to Bono Chiefs especially Techimanhene and others to stand up and defend the dignity and pride of Bonoman. This man will stop at nothing until he achieves his dream of becoming the supposed King in Ghana, Bono is only a convenient conduit for him. One man’s obsession to create a larger than life image of himself is gradually pushing us to perilous cultural divide between Bonos and Ashantis.
With politicians looking on as passive bystanders, this country is slowly sleepwalking itself into a major confrontation between Bonos and Ashantis. And the propaganda machinery at Manhyia has been activated to the limit in painting Nana Agyeman Badu as the villain. Nana Agyemang Badu II is to blame for all the problems between Bono and Asante but if you speak to any of the Bono Chiefs the anger and disgust is on everyone’s lips. Nana Agyeman Badu is only echoing the concerns of Bono chiefs with the larger platform that he has.
Something must be done to pull us from the brink, but nature also has its own ingénues way of resetting things back into equilibrium.
Let me leave you with the history of my favorite country in Europe to draw lesions from. Germany went to war against the world in 1914 and lost. At the treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919 where the powers met to spell out conditions of surrender, Germany was forced to give up West Prussia and other territories with ethnic German inhabitants to newly-independent Poland. She was to respect the independence of Austria and to recognize the independence of Czechoslovakia among others. The Allied powers stripped Germany of its colonial possessions in China and Africa. These conditions Germany felt were humiliating and insulting. Twenty seven years after in 1933 a new Chancellor took power in Germany and began to show an utter disregard of the Treaty of Versailles. Basking in the German National song which extols the virtues of: Deutschland über alles( Germany above everyone). He started off by looking for every opportunity to fight his way to get back the lost German provinces of West Prussia, Poznan (Poznań), and Upper Silesia. On September 1, 1939, Hi**er attacked Poland under the pretext that ethnic Germans were being persecuted inside Poland. Little did he know that the world will unite against his bully in a war that will be described as the deadliest war in the history of mankind claiming as many as 11 million lives.
If history is a reflection of the past and a compass to the future, misrepresenting history in order that you will be seen as above everyone is the reason why we have such mistrust, cynicism and dysfunction in our culture today. I will stop here to allow Mr. Obiri Boahen time to reflect and file his rebuttal to this article. Mr. Obiri Boahen, a historian who says a ladder dropped from the sky and some Ashantis descended from it. This man is such an embarrassment that I feel ashamed sometimes when he is referred to as Bono. And he calls himself a scholar. Bono scholars are a real deal. Come to Wenchi and meet with the Attorney General of Ghana and Justice Yaw Appau and let’s see if you can call yourself a lawyer.
As always if you have an alternative historical narrative to the contrary, get on your computer and please publish an article so that we can together educate Ghanaians especially the youth about the true Akan history.
Written by: Kofi Kyeremeh Pat
Germantown Maryland, USA
