The Ga Mantse is irate over government restrictions on Homowo

Accra, Aug 7, Ghanadot - The Ga Mantse, Nii Tackie Tawiah III, held a press conference yesterday to express his displeasure at the way the government has been intruding into Ga traditional affairs regarding the celebration of the Homowo.

Homowo is a celebration of the Gas in the Accra region, held annually for thanksgiving and solicitation through prayers for good fortune for the future.

At his Palace in Accra he offered a robust criticism of the manner the Greater Accra Regional Security Council has placed restriction on the Ga’s celebration of the Homowo festival this year.

In a stern voice, he asked the government to “Leave us alone!”

Apparently, the security agency has gone ahead, without the knowledge and acquiescence of the King, and closed the Royal Stool House at Sempe and had thrown the occupants or the keepers of the house into the street.

This act by the Security Agency has angered the Gas and the people within the Sempe area. Some who were at the Palace for the Press Conference were heard to have said, the Gas, unlike other tribes in Ghana, have been subjected to a great disrespect by these actions.

The Ga Mantse expressed the same sentiment when he said to the Press, “It was with great sadness when we head Gbevlo-Lartey asking certain persons to carry out certain actions against the Gbese stool.”

The Gbese chieftaincy is a subdivision under the paramountcy of the Ga stool.

King Tackie Tawiah III also took issue with the President, Atta Mills, when he mentioned that his congratulatory letter to him at the time the latter assumed office had to date gone unacknowledged.

To President Mills, King Tackie Tawiah III warned “If you don’t know that we are here, then understand that we are here and we are going no where else.”

On the excuse that the government was taking this action for fear of trouble and chaos that might arise from the celebrations, King Tackie Tawiah pointed out that since he assumed the stool of the Gas, for three and half years such celebrations had gone on trouble free and on schedule.

“For the past three years, I have performed rituals at the Stool House regularly and I cannot recall the BNI or any security agency interfering with the traditional rites.”

There was the issue of the Kings legitimacy as always around stool cases. But the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs had on July 18 2008 issued a proclamation that said “King Tackie Tawiah III cannot be prevented/restrained from performing customary rites that go with his office as the Ga Mantse.”

That proclamation by a body, set up by the constitution, ought to have settled any thirst for political inquisition by the government, the King implied.

The government, in effect by such restraining acts, has gone contrary to the rule. Some saw these acts as partisan excuses against a King the party in power perceived as having opposing political views. And that these acts were against the Gas for this reason.

Ghanadot






 

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