I am glad that Dr. Issah Imoro has responded to my article on Bawku published in the Ghanaian Times and Daily Graphic. I enthusiastically welcome this debate and hope it will be pursued with the highest intellectual rigor and integrity. I am particularly pleased that Dr. Imoro has invoked J.K.G. Syme’s book to make his case. I will do same, but unlike Dr. Imoro, I will quote directly from the book with page numbers, and refrain from personal name calling, insinuations and innuendos. I hope Dr. Imoro, as an academic, knows that it is not good scholarly practice to simply say “evidence shows”, “all sources agree” etc without producing such evidence or referencing such sources as he has done throughout his article. I will simply use the exact words of Syme to respond to Dr. Imoro and let the discerning readers decide which of us is disingenuous.
J. K. G. Syme was the Acting District Commissioner of Bawku and the author of: The Kusasi: A Short History, published in 1932. As the colonial official, he worked closely with the ruling class, and is, understandably a sympathetic witness of the Mamprusis. Syme acknowledges in the preface that his principal informant was one Yakubu Mamprusi, brother of the Mamprusi Chief of Bawku at the time. That said, right in the introduction, Syme makes the following submission: “That part of the Kusasi Tribe which lives in English Territory occupies the fertile lands which lie North of the Gambaga Scarp and East of the Red Volta.” “The area these people inhabit is known as the Kusasi District.” (p. i) Syme later describes the area as “the country of Kusasi” (p. 89). The Kusasis spilled over into French and German Territories at the time, and Syme is writing about Kusasi territory within the British Colonial jurisdiction. After identifying the area as Kusasi District and Kusasi country, Syme goes on to state that: “The principal town and Administrative Headquarters is Bawku” (p. i). In other words, Bawku is the Traditional and Administrative capital of the Kusasi District.
Syme further observes that the District is bisected by the White Volta. “The land between the two rivers is known locally as TOENDEMA, while that to the East of the White Volta is termed AGOLLE, after a local fetish hill near Bawku” (p. ii). Agolle and Toende means East and West in Kusaal and that is how Kusasis refer to these two halves of their territory up to this day. Syme never identifies the area as Mamprusi territory. R. S. Rattray, who undertook a more thorough and scholarly study of the area around the same time as Syme, in his book, The Tribes of the Ashanti Hinterland, states that: “The Kusase are a large tribe, numbering over 40,000, which inhabits the extreme north-eastern corner of the Northern Territories. They also extend across the border into the mandated territory of Togoland. The people call themselves Kusase, singular Kusa, and their language is Kusal” (p. 374). This is the area now covering Bawku Municipal, Pusiga, Zebilla, Binduri, Garu and Tempane Districts. In fact, Syme has a map covering this exact area as “Appendix D” in his book with the caption “Map of Kusasi.”
That the area is Kusasi District has never been questioned by any serious scholar or group apart from Bawku Mamprusis. It was after the 1966 coup that the Kusasi was replaced with “Bawku” and in the mid-1980s, Kusasis made a bid to restore the original name and to use Kusasi Traditional Area. The Mamprusis through their lawyer, Ambrose Derry, the current Minister of Interior, issued a spurious legal opinion that designating the territory Kusasi Traditional Area will exclude “some important tribes” living in the area. Of course, other ethnic groups have spilled over from Burkina and Togo (Bisas and Yangas), or since moved into the area (Hausas, Moshies, Mamprusis etc), and none of these tribes, except the Mamprusis, have ever objected to the use of Kusasi or Kusaug. Nowhere in my piece did I say the area covering the six administrative districts is “purely Kusasi”. That is an unfortunate misrepresentation by Dr. Imoro. Dr. Imoro goes on to claim that Pusiga and Binduri were founded by Mamprusis, “Garu is purely a Mossi division”, Zebilla was founded by the Talensi. My question is: So why are Moshies and Tanlensis not fighting for the Chieftainship of Garu and Zebilla respectively? In Dr. Imoro’s mind, Kusasis do not even exist let alone belong to the area. Yet, there is no Mamprusi in Bawku without Kusasi blood in their ancestry through marriages, including the Royal Family of Nalerigu. Still, Kusasis have nowhere to call home, according to Dr. Imoro.
The Mamprusi territorial claim of Kusaug is based solely on a Gbewaa they claim as their great ancestor, who is alleged to have settled in Pusiga, “disappeared” into a hole, and turned into a python. All academics who have studied the area, including Syme, refer to this claim as a myth. In any case, if Gbewaa first settled in Pusiga, 9 miles away from Bawku, why are Mamprusis not claiming the Pusiga Chieftainship? The dangerous thing about the Mamprusi claim is that it is based on a myth. It can neither be proven nor disproven. There is no shred of historical or empirical evidence to back the claim. There is no record of Mamprusi conquest of the area, no record of a treaty. The only two times Mamprusis and Kusasis fought, Mamprusis were defeated, including the Kugri battle in 1895 where, in the words of Syme, the people of Kugri, with the help of other Kusasis, “fought and routed the troops of the Na of Mamprusi” (p. 90); and “the enemy fled, and were followed as far as the Morago river.” (p. 93)
The Mamprusi claim that they founded Bawku and are therefore the rightful owners and rulers of the whole of Kusaug is most laughable and illogical, to say the least. Certainly, in earlier times, there were vast areas of uncultivated and uninhabited lands throughout Kusaug. So even granted without admitting that Mamprusis founded Bawku, does that entitle them to the whole area from Tili in the West, to Pulimakoum and Woriyanga in the East; and from Kulungungu in the North to Sinnebaga in the South? Nima and Madina are not Ga terms and not Ga settlements. Does that entitle the inhabitants of those communities to claim ownership and Chieftainship over the whole of the Ga Traditional Area? Anloga junction is an Ewe settlement in the heart of Kumasi. Does that give Ewes the right to claim the whole of Kumasi and the Asante Traditional Area as their territory?
The biggest of all the Mamprusis arguments is that they started Chieftaincy in Bawku long before the British. No Kusasi has disputed this even if the timelines spouted by Dr. Imoro and his tribesmen are completely unsubstantiated and uncorroborated by empirical historical data. Syme acknowledges that when the British arrived in the early 20th century, there were five Mamprusi Chiefs living among the Kusasis (Sinnebaga, Binduri, Bawku, Teshie and Tanga), and adds that “The Mamprusi Chiefs came in from Gambaga” (p. iii). “Their principal function”, according to Syme, “was to keep the trade route open between Nalerigu and Tenkudugu, in the Upper Volta, where the Chief of the Busangas lives, and to provide escorts for traders and slavers passing down from the North. They were merely islands surrounded by hostile Kusasis, and their spheres of influence extended a very short distance. Indeed their existence was most precarious, and Chiefs Bala of Sinnebaga and Abdahmani of Tanga were actually driven back to Gambaga, while Sateem, Chief of Bawku, was killed by the Busangas assisted by the Kusasis” (p.22). In other words, those Dr. Imoro and his tribesmen call “Chiefs” were mercenaries sent from Nalerigu to protect slave traders and their human wares through Kusasi territory enroute to the slave market in Salaga. And Kusasis resented these mercenaries.
Syme continues: “Were it not for the fact that the Mamprusi Chiefs had been imposed upon them by the Na of Mamprusi, whom the Kusasis regarded with a certain amount of awe, it is improbable that they would have tolerated them at all. The five Chiefs had but little influence except among their own immediate followers and they themselves are the first to admit this” (p. 22-23). The Kusasi and other tribes’ deference to the Chief of Nalerigu was borne out of sheer superstition about his alleged spiritual prowess. Never because of his political suzerainty. That Mamprusis continued rehearsals of a list of past Mamprusi Bawku Nabas to support their claim as the rightful owners and rulers of Bawku, and Kusaug is as ridiculous and delusional as the British clinging to a list of colonial rulers of the Gold Coast and insisting that they are the original owners and rulers of modern Ghana. Obviously, Mamprusis do not have any regards whatsoever to modern nation states boundaries and constitutions. But they have to make up their minds as to whether they want to live in modern Ghana with its laws or in a mythical 13th century Mamprugu Kingdom surrounded by witch camps.
Kusasis are the first to admit that, like other tribes in the Upper Regions, they are an autochthonous or acephalous people group who had Tindanas but not Chiefs. And talking about the Tindanas in the Kusasi area, Syme had this to say: “It has been suggested that in time to come these Tindanas would have evolved into Chiefs in the real meaning of the word. They never got a chance to do it in their own leisurely way, however, for the British suddenly arrived in Gambaga and then came into Kusasi asking for Chiefs. They found them in Gambaga and expected the same in Kusasi, where, however, they were not much in evidence. And Chiefs had to be produced” (p.26). According to Syme, the British pushed forward some important Kusasi Tindanas or a member of the Tindana family, to become Chiefs.
Syme then goes on to comment that “During the past thirty years all these Chiefs, including those made by the Germans in the Mandated Area, have consolidated their positions, and, most important of all, each was allowed to be absolutely independent of everybody else. The Chief of Bawku has perhaps been more in the limelight than the others, but he never had any authority over them” (p.29).
It was against this background that the 1931 conference of Chiefs was convened by Syme in his capacity as the Acting District Commissioner of Bawku. Syme impressed it upon the nineteen Canton Chiefs (five Mamprusis and fourteen Kusasis), to elect one amongst themselves as the Tribal or Head Chief for ease of colonial administration. He added a not so veiled threat that if the Mamprusi Bawku Naba is not elected, the government would relocate the station away from Bawku. With this level of arm-twisting, the fourteen Kusasi and four Mamprusi Chiefs elected the Mamprusi Bawku Naba at the time, Buguri, as the Head Chief of the Kusasi District. This was the first time Mamprusis exercised direct rule over Kusasis and Syme remarks that with the election, the eighteen Chiefs “lost their independence with their own consent, and there, for the present, the matter rests” (p.30).
The Acting Commissioner goes on to make the following instructive observation: “That a Mamprusi should have been chosen for the position is a significant indication of a change in attitude. But at the same time it should be remembered that the Chief of Bawku is largely a Kusasi himself and Kusasi in sympathy. Were he otherwise the consensus of opinion might not have been so whole-heartedly in his favour. At the moment, the Chiefs seem prepared to follow him implicitly. They realize he is the link between them and the Na of Mamprusi, that he is their Tribal Chief, and that the Na has given him authority to provide them with certain regalia, which is the symbol of Mamprusi Chieftainship. That’s all quite pleasant so far, says the Kusasi, but it is doubtful if the time has arrived yet when he would say the same if the Na began to take a more worldly interest in his affairs” (p. 30). Syme knew exactly what he did and hoped the Mamprusis will not overstep their boundaries or abuse the trust reposed in them.
Unfortunately, the Mamprusis did exactly that and the time Syme feared came in 1957 when Kusasi threw off a twenty-six year yoke of Mamprusi oppression. The rest of Dr. Imoro’s arguments are not worthy of a serious response. Basically, he is arguing that the findings of a Committee of Inquiry undertaken by three eminent Ghanaians (not Kusasis), were wrong. That the 1958 Appeals Court ruling was a miscarriage of justice. However, a unilateral decree by a military junta was justice to Dr. Imoro. But when another military junta reverses a decree by a former junta, that was illegal. And yet still, when the Supreme Court dismisses their case in 2003 without the liberty to reapply, suddenly it was about land and not Chieftaincy. All this time, the Mamprusis could not seek any redress through due process, but decided to take the law into their own hands, perform the funeral of a man who died over 40 years ago, to pave the way for an imported Chief from Nalerigu to rule over Kusasis. This is justice in Dr. Imoro’s logic.
In conclusion, may I remind Dr. Imoro that we are in the 21st century and should join hands in educating our young men, and particularly the teaming vulnerable young Mamprusi girls sleeping rough on the streets of Accra and Kumasi rather than being stuck with 13th century traditions and myths. A reality of the 21st century is that while many Kusasis still respect the Chief of Nalerigu, the veil of superstition of old is gone for good. Dr. Imoro submits that there was no compulsion at the 1931 Conference. Rather, “Mamprusi, Kusasi, Bissa, Bimoba, and Mossi chiefs WILLINGLY chose the 10th Bawku Naaba who was enskinned by the Nayiri in 1921 as their head and that is how come the status of the Bawku skin has been the head of the cantons (now divisions) up til today.” Well, in 1957 the Kusasis took back what they “willingly” gave in 1931. Since the outbreak of the current violence in November 2021, Mamprusis in Bawku cannot step outside one kilometre radius of their hole-up in the town centre without disguise or escort. How do they think they can rule over Kusasis throughout the six districts? If they don’t know this, I can only remind them of the Kusasi proverb that “if a bachelor goes about lying that he has a wife, he is only deceiving his manhood!”
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Rev. Prof. John Azumah
Executive Director,
The Sanneh Institute Visiting Professor, Yale University.
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