Dear IGP Yohuno,
Congratulations on your appointment as the Inspector-General of Police of the Republic of Ghana. I was initially a bit confused about your “political” pedigree because, as a nation, we have come to expect that every appointment in the security cluster has political coloration.
This confusion of mine was because both the Akuffo Addo and Mahama administrations appointed you to serve the nation, because it is a rarity in our country to be “trusted” by our two dominant political traditions almost simultaneously.
As I reflected on your political pedigree, I decided to engage you anyway on the basis of two hunches. First, my decision to engage you in this context was because the fact that you earned the trust of our two rival administrations attests to your stature as a professional police officer rather than a political hack.
Secondly, I felt your appointment was emblematic of a new development on our democratic trajectory, where increasingly the administration of the country is becoming inclusive of all citizens who have the requisite competence to contribute to the realization of our national interest aspirations as opposed to partisan interests.
This tradition of appointing people from different political traditions in the country was started by President Kuffuor and was followed thinly by the Mills and Mahama administrations.
Even though the Akuffo Addo administration bastardized the tradition since it wasn’t consistent with the Kyebi Mafia agenda of empowering a few kinsmen, the tradition has been revived and deepened by the current Mahama administration.
Sorry for the digression, Sir, but what all this windy background means is that your appointment by President Mahama is, without a doubt, a signal to the public that you are a tool for the much-talked-about “reset” agenda by the administration to ensure delivery of quality security services to Ghanaians.
However, this trust is a two-way gesture. In other words, we have entrusted our security to you in return for our cooperation with you to help you succeed in your role by providing you with, where we can, intelligence, which is the sine qua non of police work in our complex, modern societies.
It is within this context of the social contract between you and the public that I write this letter to draw your attention to a potential security threat at Chiraa, a small, but growing town in the Sunyani West District of the Bono region. Chiraa is famously known as the Benkum Division of the Dormaa Traditional Council.
Sir, the reason for writing you this letter is twofold. The first reason for this open letter is that I am using this letter to perform a civic responsibility, which is to assist the police with the sort of intelligence that would help you to succeed in your role as the IGP.
The specific information I providing you in this instance is that by their commissions and omissions, the Bono Regional Police Command is gradually becoming complicit in the family dispute over the Krontire Stool in the town, and this apparent complicity is worsening the conflict, which is gradually becoming violent.
Specifically, the regional police command has thrown all caution to the wind by subtly supporting the Queen Mother of the town, who is openly flouting traditional rules and regulations in appointing a Krontihemaa in her private residence.
The same Chiraahemaa has been opposed to the choice of the Krontire family as Krontihene for almost ten years now and has succeeded in driving a wedge between different groupings within the Krontire family in the town.
This Queen Mother, is known in the region and the country as a “heavy hitter” as far as her influence and antics in the country’s corridors of power is concerned (Kevin Taylor did a massive exposẻ on her modus operandi at the Akuffo Addo Jubilee House), especially, during the Akuffo Addo administration.
Consistent with matters about the chieftaincy institution, the Krontire family complained to the Judicial Committee of the Dormaa Traditional Council three years ago and the Krontihemaa prevailed after the Dormaahene’s panel deliberated on the matter.
Despite the decision by the Dormaahene’s panel, the Chiraahemaa continued her opposition to the choice of the Krontire family by opposing the Chief’s prerogative in giving the Krontire family a date for their candidate to swear the oath of allegiance as krontihene.
Sir, the Krontire family won an order of Mandamus at the Sunyani High Court based on all relevant evidence that both Chiraahene and Chiraahemaa had used the Krontire candidate as their Krontihene on multiple occasions, even attending a Kwafie festival at Dormaa Ahenkro with him as Krontihene.
The judge therefore ordered the Chiraahene to provide the Krontire family with a date for their candidate to swear his oath of allegiance. Sir, it is significant to note that this is a male stool and therefore all matters about it rest with the Chief of the town.
However, because the chief’s powers have been usurped by this all-powerful Queen Mother, as I write you this letter, the Chief has not been able to give the Krontihene a date for swearing the oath of allegiance to the Chiraa public.
This is where the plot of the complicity of the regional police command thickens, Sir. The next court date is in two weeks and the Judge’s ruling will be dictated by whether the Chiraahene complied with the order to give the Krontire family a date for the swearing of the oath.
The fact of the matter is that both Chiraahene and Chiraahemaa are panicking in the face of a potential “contempt of court” charge because, at the instigation of the Chiraahemaa, the Chiraahene failed to provide a date for the Krontihene to swear the oath of allegiance.
Besides this potential of contempt of court charge facing the Chiraahene, about three years ago, the Chiraahemaa had, in the unfolding dispute, invoked the Great Oath of the Dormaa state to the effect that she would abdicate her stool if the Krontihene ever occupied the Krontire stool.
Now, the reality of the Krontihene occupying the stool after swearing the oath of allegiance is staring the Chiraahemaa in the face, a fact which explains the desperate measures she is using to hold on to power, including using macho men to “invade” the town almost daily.
The one ruse she has tried and which has been the immediate cause of the current conflict in the town is the “illegal” enstoolment of a Krontihemaa of her choice following the demise of the former Krontihemaa who nominated and enstooled the current Krontihene.
The Chiraahemaa reasons that by enstooling a Krontihemaa of her choice and a lackey, the Krontihemaa would thwart every effort to keep the Krontihene on the stool, so the issue about the Dormaa Oath would not arise for her to account for it.
The immediate cause of the conflict, which needs a trigger to degenerate into a full-blown armed conflict, is that after this illegal enthronement in her private residence, the Queen Mother engaged the services of some Macho men from Sunyani and other places.
The aim of this exercise which occurred on the 27th April, 2025, was to parade the so-called Krontihemaa through the streets of the town at that time of the night with the ultimate goal of forcibly entering the Krontire palace to cloak her Krontihemaa with a semblance of power and legitimacy.
However, this effort by the Queen Mother and her thugs was thwarted by the residents of Asabia, the suburb of the town where the Krontire family is located, who, armed with stones and catapults, routed the Queen Mother’s thugs.
The Chiraahene apparently called the regional police commander, who in turn, deployed some police personnel to the town to maintain the peace until the following morning.
The following day, the 28th April, the leaders of both factions in the conflict were invited by the regional crime officer, one Superintendent Owiredu, to attend a meeting called by the Regional Coordinating Council.
This meeting was chaired by the Regional Minister, Hon. Akwaboah, with the regional police commander, regional crime officer, and the MCE for the Sunyani West District, all in attendance.
After hearing from both sides about the reason(s) for the violent confrontation the night prior, the regional Minister, who I believe is a Lawyer by profession, advised both sides to lay down their “weapons”.
The Regional Minister, in his wisdom, counseled that the laws are there to protect everybody, so if there was any misunderstanding about the traditional enstoolment processes, which the Queen Mother had openly breached in her desperate effort to avoid sanctions by invoking the Great Oath of the Dormaa state.
Following the conclusion of the meeting, the Krontihene and his supporters had filed for an injunction to prevent the young woman from desisting from carrying herself as the Krontihemaa because she was not nominated and enstooled by the Krontire family as custom demands, but by the Chiraahemaa under the cover of darkness.
Sir, it is significant to note that the Chiraahemaa has instigated the young woman to breach the injunction order on two separate occasions, a situation that has compelled the Krontihene’s lawyers to file a supplementary application for a contempt of court charge against the so-called Krontihemaa.
Moreover, since the moratorium on any kind of movement or match to parade anybody as the Krontihemaa, the Chiraahemaa has been bringing macho men to the town to force open the Krontire palace with impunity from the regional police command, whom she boasts that she has in her “pockets”.
Because of this apparent complicity of the regional police command in the irrational behavior of the Queen Mother, the command has turned a deaf ear to any complaint of a breach of the truce by the supporters of the Krontihene.
Needless to say, this situation has led to the perception in the town that the police are biased towards the Queen Mother, hence, the fueling of the tension in the town.
One member of the Krontire family has an audio recording of the Regional Crime Officer asking the caller who called to complain about the activities of the Queen Mother what he, the caller, wanted him to do! Since the same crime officer came to my house to invite me to the meeting at the Coordinating Council, I called him last Wednesday when there was another move by the Chiraahemaa with a prospect for violence in the town, but to my utter chagrin, the officer rudely hung up the phone on me.
These attitudes by the regional police personnel have confirmed in the minds of the town’s residents that peace will forever elude the town because the police have openly taken a position in the ongoing conflict. This Queen Mother has become a loose cannon in the town, abusing her power in every aspect of the town’s life, including making it mandatory for market women to feed her and her family every week through the collection of food items free of charge from these poor women and imposing exorbitant fines on women who appear before her court for infractions of various types.
I am, by this letter, serving notice to the national police hierarchy that the town of Chiraa in the Bono region, remains on tenterhooks security wise because of the complicity of the regional police command and that if anything untoward happens in the town in the days and weeks ahead, the buck will have to stop with the regional police command, especially Superintendent Owiredu, the regional crime officer who sounds like he has overstayed his welcome in the region.
The regional police command should endeavor to prevent the deployment of Macho men by any side to the conflict to intimidate anybody, because the mere sight of these so-called Macho men evokes negative emotions in right-thinking persons.
Professor Acheampong Amoateng, PhD, is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology with the Catholic University, Fiapre, Sunyani and the Akyempemhene of the Krontire Family of Chiraa.
