Mission attempts to ease Dagbon crisis

The Andani clan involved in the Dagbon chieftaincy dispute in northern Ghana told a United Nations mission at the weekend that it had withdrawn cooperation from a government commission of inquiry because that inquiry had lost its original focus. Briefing a three-member UN team assessing the Dagbon crisis on Sunday, the regent of Tamale, naa Ziblim Abdulai, said the Wuaku Commission, had failed in its purpose when it shifted from investigating the murder of the King of Dagbon to "portraying to the world that there was a conflict between the Andani and the Abudu clans". The UN team is currently on a fact-finding mission in the Dagbon traditional area to investigate the circumstances surrounding a crisis which led to the killing of the Dagbon king and 29 others on 27 March. The visit followed an appeal by the Ghanaian government to the UN to help find solutions to the Dagbon chieftaincy crisis and other conflicts. An "uneasy calm" has prevailed in northern Ghana since the March killings, according to local sources. Abdulai told the UN team that the Andani clan had written a memo to President John Kufuor on 26 August to say it would not cooperate with the commission of Justice Isaac Wuako until "certain issues" were addressed. It had also sought an audience with the president to "draw his attention to the shift in focus, but the president turned down the request," Abdulai added. He said the Andani would cooperate with the commission if their concerns were addressed, and appealed to the government to give them permission to reconstruct the royal palace - burned to the ground during clashes in March - to pave the way for the burial of the king, whose body has been lying in Yendi mortuary since. Abdulai also appealed to the UN team to prevail on the government to release 14 people who were arrested for demonstrating during a visit to Tamale by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 20 August. The UN mission team, led by Dr Elsadiq Abunafeesa, is expected to explore appropriate means by which to arrest the proliferation of small and large weapons in parts of Ghana, particularly in the Dagbon area. On its way to Tamale from the Ghanaian capital, Accra, the mission stopped in the central city of Kumasi for discussions with the king of the Ashanti, Otumfuo Osei Tutu. He is chairman of the government's mediation team on the Dagbon chieftaincy crisis. The team also visited Yendi, seat of the Dagbon kingship, and held discussions with the leadership of the feuding factions, from the Andani and Abudu clans, who fell out over details of a rotation system for accession to the kingship.