The Mills administration does not care who is or becomes the Ga Mantse, says a Deputy Information Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.
For him, a call by the General Secretary of the opposition New Patriotic Party on the government to ensure that the status quo with respect to the Ga Mantse dispute is maintained, is misplaced and unfortunate.
“People are forcing government to belong to one side or they are deliberately pigeonholing government to belong to one side. I was very disappointed when I heard the General Secretary of the NPP yesterday say that government should maintain the status quo and reinstall the Ga Mantse. I was wondering what he was talking about because government has no role to play [in this], we don’t install chiefs,” he told Matilda Asante Asiedu, host of Joy FM’s news analysis programme, Newsfile Saturday.
Mr Ablakwa said it was extremely important for government and Gas in particular to be guided by the wise counsel of former president Kufuor on the matter of a Ga Mantse in 2007.
According to the Deputy Minister, Mr Kufuor told a delegation from the Ga state which had gone to the Castle Osu to invite him to the coronation of King Tackie Tawiah III, that “all impediments must be removed before he could join the Ga Traditional Council with the authority of the state to share in the joy of the enthronement.”
Before the installation of King Tackie Tawiah, a section of the Ga chiefdom had gone before the Regional House of Chiefs to challenge his legitimacy to ascend to the throne and president Kufuor told the delegation he wanted to know how the traditional council intended to resolve that matter to ensure peace.
“President Kufuor must be commended [for the] very bold statement he made even before the traditional council, before the cameras, before the media,” Mr Ablakwa said.
He said it was however disturbing that while the president refused to attend the coronation because the issues surrounding the installation had not been resolved, high ranking government officials did.
It is his contention that if the former president’s caution had been taken seriously, the current situation where a new Ga Mantse has been installed would not have arisen.
All the major political parties, he said, had some of their leading members who are Gas playing key roles in the Ga Mantse issue, “so let us not [politicize] it and draw government and draw political parties into it.”
The spokesperson of King Tackie Tawiah III, said the Ga Mantse was not shaken by the happenings in the Ga State.
Nii Boye Abe said King Tawiah as a lawyer was a believer in the rule of law and was determined not to let the disagreement degenerate into violence and chaos.
Joy Online