Traditional leaders including Chiefs, queens, and opinion leaders in the Fodome Traditional Area of the Volta region, have undergone training on governance and chieftaincy-related.
The training is aimed at equipping the rulers of Constitutional mandates that would enhance proper execution of their various roles in the Area.
Mr Harry Attipoe, Registrar of the Volta Region House of Chiefs, the Facilitator, touched on the enstoolment and destoolment of Chiefs and queens.
He said the patrilineal and matrilineal inheritance were the two types of inheritance in Ghana adding that Article 277 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana clearly defined a Chief.
‘In Ghana a chief is a person put in a leadership position and expected to play certain roles in a community or area of jurisdiction in accordance with laid down traditional regulations’.
Mr Attipoe also noted that queens, who were also added to the list of traditional rulers in the Constitution, played a vital role especially among the Akans of Ghan
a, in nomination, guiding, influencing, and assisting in the selection of the traditional leadership in Ghana.
He said for one to be a Chief in Ghana, they had to belong to the family or families which were accepted by the people of the community, or area as ‘royals’.
Mr Attipoe said with regards to succession, every stool or skin had a name in the country, and it must be noted.
‘In Ghana, there are two systems of inheritance to every stool and skin and that is matrilineal and patrilineal. Every stool and skin also in rotary. It rotates from one gate to the other’.
He said in the past, it was rather easier to destool a chief or a queen mother by removing their sandals (alhinima) and slaughter a goat or sheep on the feet then openly declare him or her destooled.
‘This practice is illegal and contravenes Section 63 of the Chieftaincy Act 759 of 2008.
The legal procedure must be applied.
Mr Attipoe said to destool a chief or queen mother, the Kingmakers had to file a petition against him or her at the Tra
ditional Council they belonged to if they were not the paramount leaders.
He said a Judicial Committee would be instituted to try the accused ruler and only the charges of destoolment stated on the Chieftaincy Declaration forms should be leveled against the respondents.
‘In the case of a paramount chief or Queen mother the procedure has to be initiated at the Regional House of Chiefs’.
Mr Attipoe said any losing party from the Traditional Council had the option to appeal at the Regional House of Chiefs and to the National of Chiefs and the last option to appeal from the National House of Chiefs was to the Supreme Court.
He said the Supreme Court would then order the National House of Chiefs to expunge the name of the loser from the Register of Chiefs and it was only at the instance that the Kingmakers could customarily destool the Chief or Queen mother.
Togbega Gbedegbleme Akpatsa II, Paramount Chief of Fodome Traditional Area, said the training was important to all rulers in the paramountcy.
He said ad
hering to outcomes of the training would ensure peaceful co-existence in the area.
Source: Ghana News Agency