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Photo Courtesy: Abod |
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A fitting
burial it was!
Samuel Dowuona
In the wake of recent concerns expressed by traditional and
political office holders about expensive funerals and the
need to take the merry making and partying out of funerals,
one would have thought that the funeral of the late Ga
Mantse, Boni Nii Amugi II would have been used as an example
of how funerals should be. But no.
Except for the fact that the body of the late king of the Ga
State lay in a gorgeous casket in full glare of the
thousands of ecstatic mourners who stampeded
the Ga Mantse’s Palace between Thursday January 25 to
Saturday January 28, 2007.The funeral did not look or feel
anything like a period of mourning at all.
Not that the people of the Ga State were happy about the
death of their most beloved king. But that they believe that
because the soft spoken, slow to anger and quick to forgive
Ga Mantse brought honour to the sacred Abetetsi Afadi stool
of Nii Okai Koi We, he would be given a heroes’ send-off to
the land of our ancestors.
For once it was worth ignoring the advice to make funerals
less expensive and less of a party in order to see the late
honourable king off in style into the ancestral world.
Even those who usually organize so-called expensive
funerals, otherwise known as “gbele party” (death party),
often argue that their deceased loved ones deserve a fitting
burial.
A fitting burial is what ordinary people who have the means
to, organize for their loved ones. The Ga Mantse’s funeral
was far, far more than a fitting burial.
If I was asked to do a head count of the mourners and well
wishers who showed up at the recently renovated Ga Mantse’s
Palace for the funeral, I am sure I could have counted over
a hundred thousand people and more...
The profile of the mourners and well wishers at the funeral
gave credence to the honour Nii Amugi brought to the Ga
State in his 39 years of reign. That is from 1965 to 2004.
The list included the sitting President John Agyekum Kufuor,
his Vice Alhaji Aliu Mahama, Former President Jerry John
Rawlings, Former Vice President John Evans Ata Mills, Former
Speaker of Parliament Mr. Ala Adjetey, ministers of state,
MPs, members of the diplomatic corps and several others.
Reknowned Chiefs from other traditional areas in country,
including Okyehene Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori Panin II,
Asantehene Otumfuor Osei Tutu II, other members of the
National House of Chiefs and all the Chiefs of communities
in the Ga State who pay allegiance to the Abetetsi Afadi
Stool.
In the brochure for the event were pictures of the late
chief with men and women of great repute indicating the
height of honour and respect he attracted to himself and to
the stool. They include the late Pope John Paul II, former
Nigerian military dictators, Sani Abacha and General
Babangida among others.
The list of officiating ministers for the funeral was a
phenomenal 13 including the crème de la crème of Christian
leaders in the country. The late Ga Mantse, known in private
life as Simon Nii Yarboi Yartey was a staunch Anglican, an
organist of that church in his youthful days and for that
the pack of officiating ministers was led by The Most
Reverend Justice Offei Akrofi, Anglican Bishop of Accra.
Fourteen tributes were read: from the late chief’s family,
the Ga State, the government of Ghana, the National House of
Chiefs, the former president and others. There was also a
poem by Ghana’s most known poet Professor Atukwei Okai.
Besides, the high quality of the profile of mourners and
well wishers, the funeral itself was characterized by a
spectacular display of Ga culture, manifested varied
paraphernalia that depicted the history of the Ga people and
also in the arrival of the various houses of the Ga State
led by their chiefs and asafo (warrior) groups.
One particular big banner hanged on the funeral grounds
tracing the history of the Ga people back to the Biblical
Nicholaitans whose deeds God hated as recorded in
Revelations 2: 6, 15.
Indeed, the leader of the Ga people from Israel to where
they are now in Ghana was Nikoi Olai whose name was coined
from “Nicholaitans”.
The history of the various houses of the Ga State was also
traced to the biblical Amon (the root for Amon Kotei) in 2
Chronicles 33: 20-21, Amasa (Amasaman in Accra), 2
Samuel 17:25 and 1 Chronicles 2:17, Ashel (from where
we got the name Ashaley), 1Chronicles 2:16, 2 Samuel
2:18-19, Janne (the root for the name Dzani), 2Timothy 3:8
and Ashie in the Apocryphal Psalms 247 and 264 in the old
Jewish Torah.
The Gas were said to have journeyed from Israel in the
Middle East through Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Chad, Nigeria,
Benin, Togo and finally to Ghana.
It was no wonder therefore to see light skinned persons
dressed like Jewish Rabbis at the funeral. The women folk
could not help it but to rain appellations on the Jewish
folks “wo man bii…!” meaning our countrymen.
Speaking of Women folk it reminds me that no earings, neck
laces, bangles or any such ornaments were allowed unto the
funeral grounds because they defied the spirit of mourning.
One would have thought that the politicians would haven
given some respect to the late Ga Mantse’s remains and to
the fact the chiefs and people of the Ga state were in a
state of mourning but no; die hard foolhardy politicians had
no such considerations in their thoughts.
But bye and large the funeral was absolutely successful.
Minutes after that unfortunate incident, the mortal remains
of the late Ga Mantse was taken through Christian
consecration and then through the customary rituals, which
saw the slaughter of a sheep and two cows, whose blood were
symbolically the path way for his entrance into the spirit
world.
He body was taken through the city of Accra to the various
houses in the Ga State. That was the period when traffic
started mounting in the city, having been absent from the
morning of Saturday January 27, 2007 due to a ban placed on
all commercial activities on the day of the chief’s burial.
Some believed that the casket that was taken through the
rituals and through the city purported to contain the mortal
remains of the late chief, was actually empty. The belief is
that nobody must know where and when the body of the chief
is buried and for that the empty casket was used to divert
people’s attention to elsewhere and the body was taken
through another route and buried late in the night at a
place where only those who buried it would know.
Whether that was true or not, I can say that Boni Nii Amugi
II had more than a fitting funeral and I sure do believe he
had an equally more than an fitting burial, wherever the
location of his burial might be.
Samuel Dowuonah, January 31, 2007
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