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ABOAKYER 2024 – WHERE IS YOUR HUNTING GROUNDS?

The other day, I was deeply reflecting on what to write about Effutu after my published open letter last year to the Omanhene of Effutu, Neenyi Ghartey VII, on his appointment as Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba, and how he could transform Effutu with his office and influence. I was excited to learn few weeks ago that Osaberima Kwesi Atta II, Omanhene of the Ogua Traditional Area, has also been honored by the University of Cape Coast.

Nathaniel Akyeampong – Writer

The preceding illustrates the recognition traditional leadership has received over the years from all facet of our national life. Such appointments or honors, has enlightened us on the need to demand accountability and performance from traditional office holders, in spite of pressing challenges that may come their way in the discharge of their entrusted duties. Through time-tested convention, they are leaders who wields enormous power and authority, and this imposes a civic duty on us as followers, to pay attention to traditional governance and administration.

But I am here for something different. I am here to take you to the unknown. I am here to reiterate and fortify a public knowledge. As the wise saying goes, “we dance when a music is played”, this ceremonious occasion offers us an opportunity to comprehensively analyze the issue about the Aboakyer hunting grounds, the conduct of the minerals commission, and the company which applied for a license to undertake mining prospecting at the area.

Our Effutu ancestors left a sacred grove for us, which is a protected area. It is an interspersed forest reserve with several ancient names such as Egyasimanku, Yenku, Wu Yir Pɔw, Anyion Pɔw, among others. In 1992, the wildlife division of the forestry commission labelled the entire enclave as Muni Pomadze Ramsar Site after Ghana became a signatory to the Ramsar convention. Since creation, this has been the hunting grounds for the annual celebration of the Aboakyer festival.

This territory is rumored to have come under intense lobbying for mineral prospecting. In 2007, Caribbean Atlantic Holding Ghana Limited was the first to embark on that exercise. Obotan Resources Limited in 2012 is suggested to have made similar attempt. Four years later in 2016, Merlic Resources Limited also expressed same interest. And they were all not successful with their intentions.

However, in 2022, Green Metal Resources Limited, a mining firm, also made a proposal to the minerals commission for lithium prospecting at the area. Unlike previous companies, the minerals commission on 19th May 2022 initiated regulatory process through the Effutu Municipal Assembly on its notice board, to grant a license to them. Consequently, Omanhene of Effutu, Neenyi Ghartey VII did the needful. He organized a press conference on behalf of the Effutu Traditional Area and its people, on Wednesday, 29th June 2022, to express disapproval of the application before the minerals commission.

Subsequent to this, well-meaning indigenous citizens of Effutu also followed suit to add on to the protestations. Needless meanings, most especially politics, was assigned to their cause, as if they were the ones who even applied for the permit from the minerals commission. I am sure as I am writing, a reader is on a fishing expedition to establish a political motivation against me for writing this script, instead of concentrating on its merit.

Notwithstanding all the sound traditional, cultural, social, and economic grounds that were given as basis for the opposition to the application in June/July 2022, stakeholders from Effutu had cause to repeat or reorganize news conferences on the matter on the hunting grounds again in November 2023. Officialdom questioned the motive of those public protests because they were pursued few weeks to the 2023 district Assembly elections, and therefore had political seeking objectives from other protesters. But that assertion was rather not true, because an intercepted electronic license showed proof, that the minerals commission had since 12th April 2023, granted a three year license to the Green metal resources company to commence mining prospecting at the same area from 9th November 2023 to 8th November 2026, with an active license code, PL-I-3/15.

The persistence of the minerals commission and mining companies to mine at the area at all cost, calls for broader diagnosis of the issue, including our values, and all other important accompanying factors that perhaps, we may not have paid close attention to, and their domino effects on us as a people. You will bear me out, that if it were to be some other traditional area or kingdom, the minerals commission and the current establishment, would have taken administrative steps to terminate the process and assure the Effutu people of an end to the matter, since the traditional council was not even consulted nor fully briefed before the process began in 2022.

The process to mine remains inconclusive in the thought of the powers that be, because we are not making traditional progress. We have failed to position our festivals to attract commensurate sponsorship after decades and centuries of celebrations. We have kept so long to bring our protracted chieftaincy disputes to an end. We are too entrenched, even when prevailing circumstances doesn’t call for entrenchment. And greatest of all, at this time and age, we have still not been able to construct a modern palace with facilities such as offices, traditional museum, and library, that befit our status and institutional environment.

To prevent any catastrophe that may cause our prestigious Aboakyer festival to lose its popularity and international patronage, we need to be vigilant and keep an eye on activities of the minerals commission, relative to the hunting grounds. In spite of our differences, which is characteristic of every human settlement, peace building or coexistence must be a priority to all. We must cultivate a culture as a community which is difficult to be assailed and compromised. In all our traditional affairs, we must always look at the bigger picture and the ends of things. The traditional council must review its scope of operations to become more representational, engaging, and above all, formidable.

Lack of funds, which has been attributed to as one of the challenges on the conversation about the construction of a palace, could be easily addressed if we are truly ambitious about the project. By privilege of local legislation, the Effutu Municipal Assembly could pass a special levy in its fee-fixing resolution for a fiscal period(s) on all houses, corporate organizations, and businesses in the traditional area, purposely to mobilize funds for the construction of a trans-generational palace. When this is executed with considerable transparency, many other important displaced stuff, including an invasion on our heritage, will end.

Further, due to the contribution of tourism and ecology to the national and global economy, the Effutu Traditional Council could petition the presidency and copy parliament, with cogent reasons on the need to enact a law to perpetually restrain the minerals commission, and any other state institution, from granting permit to any company today, or in future, to undertake mining activities at the aforementioned territory. This is doable, as there are countless examples of traditional administrative set-ups that have relied on the country to put in measures to preserve its heritage.

That said, the stance of the Effutu people should not be construed to mean it is an ignorant community which doesn’t have full appreciation of the benefits that the lithium exploration would bring. That would be a simplistic view to hold. Unlike notable mining towns such as Tarkwa, Obuasi, Akwatia etc, which even have nothing substantial to show for many years of mining activities at their area, our case is a peculiar one. Mining at the Muni Pomadze Ramsar Site would make us die out. We will lose our pride and identity because Aboakyer’s uniqueness originate from the adventure or hunting bit of it. We will have little to tell in future about our ancestral migration some 500 years ago from Timbuktu through Gonjaland to our present abode, moreso when this forest was the last hurdle they surmounted on their route from Dwoma/Mumford on the west.

As I pen down to commemorate a decade after writing similar text – Simpapayin And Its Effect On The Effutu State in 2014, I graciously convey my sincere appreciation to all who have shown leadership with their actions, by playing diverse roles in the fight on the preservation of Effutu cultural heritage, which our forebears bequeathed to us. You have proved your mettle as sons and daughters of a society who understands the tenets of patriotism. Effutu is eternally indebted to you, because through your selfless sacrifices, we have a hunting grounds for Aboakyer 2024, which I invite you, my cherished reader, to join us to celebrate in the coming days.

Ani Sɔm Omengye!

Mi Na Ani Afi Mpa!

Nathaniel Akyeampong
natakyee10@gmail.com
0242534251

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