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ISLAM, POLITICS AND DEVELOPMENT: NEGOTIATING THE
FUTURE OF DAGBON
A LECTURE DELIVERED BY
MUSTAPHA ABDUL-HAMID
LECTURER
DEPARTMENT OF RELIGION AND HUMAN VALUES
UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST
CAPE COAST
DATE: 11TH APRIL, 2011.
VENUE: ALISA HOTEL, ACCRA.
TIME: 5:00pm
Part Three
Part
Four
Thus far, I have tried to trace the long history of
struggle for succession as far as the Yendi skin is
concerned. Frederick James urges us to “always
historicise.” However I have not recounted history
merely for its sake. I have also not recounted this
long history of struggle for succession in Dagbon in
order to justify any side’s sense of victimisation
or heroism. But this is just to say that, first of
all, the back and forth will continue for a long
time to come if not forever, if we don’t take a
decision that enough is enough. This has to stop
somewhere.
Secondly, it also leads us to the conclusion that
politicians, political parties and governments have
not been able to find a permanent solution to the
Yendi skin affair and would probably never be able
to do so. This is because no matter how well-meaning
a government’s intervention is, it will leave one
side of the divide bruised. So they sit and lick
their wounds and wait for a more ‘friendly’
government. And the cycle continues. Indeed none of
the sides has ever perceived any government as an
independent arbiter. Under the present
circumstances, the Mills administration has not
presented itself as capable of independent
arbitration.
These decades of haggling over succession in Dagbon,
built up frustration on both sides of the
chieftaincy divide. The Andani family had always
been frustrated by the fact that twice in
succession, they were denied the occupation of the
skin in favour of Abudu candidates. The Abudus on
the other hand, have since 1988, been frustrated by
their inability to perform the funeral of the late
Ya Na Mahamadu Abdulai. The government White Paper
that was issued on the report of the Wuaku
Commission had this to say; “that the remote cause
of the disturbances in Yendi is the longstanding
chieftaincy dispute between the Andani and the Abudu
Gates, including the non-observance of the funeral
of the late Mahamadu Abdulai IV.”
Way before 2002 therefore, Dagbon was virtually
sitting on a powder keg, which was waiting to
explode. Explode it did between March 25-27 2002.
This is explained by sociologists in what is known
as the frustration-aggression theory. According to
this theory, if there is a difference between what
people feel they deserve and what they actually get,
in other words, ‘expected need satisfaction’ and
actual need satisfaction, aggression results.
According to Ted Robert Gurr’s relative deprivation
thesis, the greater the discrepancy between what is
sought and what seems attainable, the greater would
be the chances that anger and violence would result.
The frustration on both sides of the divide is what
resulted in the aggression of 25-27 March, which
claimed the lives of 29 people, including that of
the Ya Na.
Aftermath of 27th March, 2002.
President Kufuour
In the past two weeks, some people have been at
pains to remind us that the events of 27th March,
2002 occurred “under the watch of President Kufuor”,
as if it is a fact in dispute. So what steps did
President Kufuor take? The first thing that he was
to send a fact-finding mission, led by Senior
Minister J H Mensah, and police investigative team
to Dagbon. Next he set up the Wuaku Commission.
Among other things, the Wuaku Copmmission was
supposed to;
a) Make a full, faithful and impartial inquiry into
the circumstances of and establish the facts leading
to the events and the resultant deaths and injuries
in Yendi in the Dagbon Traditional Area of the
Northern Region between 25th and 27th March, 2002;
b) To identify those responsible for the
events and the resultant deaths and injuries of
persons and to recommend appropriate sanctions or
actions against any person found to have caused,
been responsible for or been involved in the
violence and the resultant deaths and injuries;
c) To inquire into any matter which the commission
considers incidental or reasonably related to the
events and the resultant deaths and injuries; and d)
To submit within one month, its report to the
President, giving reasons for its findings and
recommendations.
The Wuaku Commission found out that due to the
frustration that both sides had been facing
regarding one unfulfilled need or the other, they
had been stock-piling arms to attack each other, if
the opportunity arose. To celebrate the bugum
festival or not to celebrate was as they say, “the
last straw that broke the camel’s back.” The Wuaku
Commission went on to recommend two people for
prosecution for the killing of the Ya Na. They were
prosecuted but the court ruled that there was not
enough evidence to convict them of murder.
But President Kufuor thought that while we were
still at it, to find the person or persons whose
fingers triggered the bullet(s) that killed the Ya
Na came, it was important to find a solution to the
decades’ old dispute that sparked the conflict in
the first place. He therefore set up the Committee
of Eminent Chiefs, made up of the Asantehene, the
Yagbonwura and the Nayiri to try to broker peace and
find permanent reconciliation. Indeed the Dagomba
people themselves had in 1648, submitted themselves
to the arbitration of the king of Mamprugu Na Atabia.
It would seem to me therefore that this was the
safest, wisest and most impartial way to find a
lasting solution to the problem. While the eminent
chiefs were still at it, the NPP lost power.
President Evans Atta Mills
Even before President Mills and his NDC party would
come into government, they ridiculed President
Kufuor’s efforts, doubted his government’s sincerity
and even alleged that the government had a hand in
the death of the Ya Na. They therefore promised in
their manifesto to set up a “truly independent”
commission to take a better look at the Yendi
affair. On coming into government, the concentration
of the NDC turned towards arraigning alleged killers
of the Ya Na before a criminal court, even
abandoning the idea of the commission of inquiry.
They showed little or no interest in any
simultanoeus pursuit of reconciliation. The
arbitration effort of the Asantehene and the two
eminent chiefs suffered in the process. Indeed,
hitherto, it had been the staunch position of
President Mills that there was no point in seeking
reconciliation between these brothers, if the one
whose trigger caused the death of the Ya Na was not
found. Thus, in the view of the NDC, finding the
person(s) who killed the Ya Na is pre-requisite to
reconciliation and peace. That, there can be no
peace and reconciliation without, in effect,
criminal justice. But, would justice be served if
people were jailed irrespective of the evidence or
lack thereof?
Indeed this kind of politics has divided Dagombas
into victims and villains, devils and saints, just
and unjust. But, in a democracy people don’t go to
jail because the President feels frustrated.
According to our constitution, people should only be
convicted on the weight of solid evidence proven
beyond reasonable doubt. 14 members of the Abudu
family were rounded up in 2010 and put before court.
After about eight months of trial, the prosecution
could not prove its case and therefore they were set
free. The President was incensed and has vowed to
apprehend the killer(s) by all means; otherwise, in
his view, there would be no peace in Dagbon.
According to the President apprehending the killer(s)
of the Ya Na is more important than building roads
or bridges or even protecting the independence and
sanctity of the judiciary. This opened the flood
gates for a flurry of attacks on the judiciary.
One particular attack on the judiciary is worthy of
note. This came from a retired justice of the
Supreme Court and a supporter of the NDC, Justice
F.Y Kpegah. He said on national television, that the
presiding judge in the case should have taken the 14
accused persons to jail on the “circumstantial
evidence.” So the NDC has its own brand of justice:
just about any Abudu at all should go to jail to
satisfy its political platform promise.
Justice Kpegah knows fully well, the circumstances
under which a person can be convicted for murder or
on an allegation of it, using circumstantial
evidence. The case of The State Vrs Anani Fiadzo
which is a classical case for law students, held
that;
A presumption from circumstantial evidence should be
drawn against an accused person only when the
presumption follows irresistibly from the
circumstances proved in evidence. And in order to
justify the inference of guilt, the inculpatory
facts must be incompatible with the innocence of the
accused and incapable of explanation upon any other
reasonable hypothesis than that of guilt.
In the case of the 14 accused, the prosecution was
not even alleging that there was circumstantial
evidence on which to convict them. So Justice Kpegah
is basically saying that in the case of the desire
to find the killer(s) of the Ya Na a judge can
introduce issues that the prosecution has not even
raised in order to convict accused persons. Anyway,
so we are where we are: still in search of the
person whose finger on the trigger caused the death
of the Ya Na. The President of the Republic has
suggestted that there would never be peace in Dagbon
if he does not find the person who killed the Ya Na.
But I disagree. History is replete with cases in
which killers of high profile figures have not been
found, but yet the societies concerned have
continued to make progress even as they have
continued to pursue the alleged killers.
On the 28th of February 1986, the then Prime
Minister of Sweden, Olof Palme, was gunned down on
the streets of Stockholm, in an event that what was
clearly an act of assasination. To this day, the
killer has remained elusive. Sweden is one of the
most organised societies in the world. Even though
the killer of the late Prime Minister has not been
found, the Swedish people have made substantial
progress in their development efforts since 1986.
What can we learn from this Swedish experience? May
I humbly submit that regardless of our best efforts,
there can be no guarantee that the alleged killers
of the Ya Na can ever be found having regard to the
circumstances of his death. However, with sincere
commitment from all sides, especially between the
Abudus and Andanis, we can guarantee genuine
reconciliation which is necessary for moving Dagbon
forward. Let us not forget that this was a kingdom
that was fully on the march for nearly 300 years
before the Ashanti kingdom was founded. For it to be
reduced to such rubble is a sad commentary on all
the actors in this affair.
Eminent Chiefs
I insist that the way for progress and development
of Dagbon is to intensify the process of
reconciliation. And, in this regard the work of the
Committee of Eminent Chiefs could prove invaluable.
I support fully the call of the NPP and its leaders
for the nation to go back to the work of the
Committee of Eminent Chiefs and I am happy to note
that over the weekend the pesewa has finally dropped
and that the Government, through the agency of the
Vice President, John Mahama, has gone to the Manhyia
Palace to ask Otumfuo, the Asantehene, and the
Committee of Eminent Chiefs to go back to work,
their work deserves the support of all well-meaning
Ghanaians.
Justice
Everybody is talking about justice for the Ya Na. I
agree. But what is justice? Justice basically means
a situation where everybody gets what is due them by
right. To this end, there are various types of
justice. But for the purposes of this lecture, I
shall be concerned with retributive justice and
restorative justice. Retributive justice is to do
unto others, what they have done unto you in equal
measure for the sake of it. It is akin to the Mosaic
concept of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
Stripped to its barest, retributive justice actually
means vengeance.
This is the type of justice that the President of
Ghana seeks for the Andani royal family. This type
of justice targets both an alleged perpetrator of a
crime and anybody else associated with him/her. So
that is the reason why Justice Kpegah wants any
member of the Abudu family who is put before a court
to be convicted and jailed, irrespective of the
weight of evidence against that fellow. Even so,
many people died in Yendi between 25-27 March, 2002.
All the people who died on that day have mothers,
fathers and perhaps wives and children. So what will
be justice for these people? For example a certain
woman went to the Wuaku Commission to testify about
how her son Deeba, was recruited by Ibrahim Mahama
to go and be a warrior for the Ya Na. Her son died
in the hostilities. And all Ibrahim Mahama did was
to give her a bag of rice. Her appearance at Wuaku
showed that she was not satisfied. She wanted
justice for her son too. So what do we envisage will
be justice for her?
Remember I just told you that justice is giving to
everybody what is due them by right. And John Rawls
states that justice envisages a situation where
“each person is to have an equal right to the most
extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar
liberty for others.”
So justice envisages a situation where we would be
seeking to restore the right of every family whose
member lost his life on that day. That is what
justice is, irrespective of whether it is
restorative or retributive.
Now, restorative justice. Restorative justice unlike
retributive justice takes into consideration, the
needs of both victim and offender. Its aim is not
merely to satisfy legality and rules of punishment.
Restorative justice is defined as:a broad
term which encompasses a growing social
movement to institutionalize peaceful approaches to
harm, problem-solving and violations of legal and
human rights. Rather than privileging the law,
professionals and the state, restorative resolutions
engage those who are harmed, wrongdoers and their
affected communities in search of solutions that
promote and repair and also reconciliation and the
rebuilding of relationships. Restorative justice
seeks to build partnerships to reestablish mutual
responsibility for constructive responses to
wrongdoing within our communities. Restorative
approaches seek a balanced approach to the needs of
the victim, wrongdoer and community through
processes that preserve the safety and dignity of
all.
Cont'd...5/5
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