MY PEOPLE WHEN SHALL WE HAVE UNITY AND PEACE Counsel for the Abola Piam family from the

Dzaase who are claimants to the Ga stool and who have installed a new chief has dissociated himself from the act. Bright Akwetey has described Sundays installation of Nii Tackie Adama Latse II and his subsequent takeover of the Ga Mantse Palace on Monday as embarrassing to the Ga people and the Ga State. Even though he conceded that his clients are the legitimate heirs to the Ga throne, he would not advocate a forceful takeover, particularly when portions of the chieftaincy dispute remains in the courts. I foresaw it coming and I got to know that people were pushing it. So I advised my clients and I advised the Dzaase people that you are the legitimate people to install a Ga Manste but once you have taken the case to Dodowa (the Ga Traditional Council) and you want the Chiefs to adjudicate upon it, it means you couldnt do anything about it that is why you took the case to Dodowa. So if the chiefs are waiting to finish the case and it is about getting to the end and then you take the law into your own hands and go and install a Ga Mantse, I feel embarrassed," he said. If you install a chief in conflict, you harvest conflict, he told Joy News Israel Laryea on Monday. According to the lawyer, his client, until Sunday had adopted a peaceful and legitimate means of ousting the Ga Mantse, Nii Tackie Tawiah III and had sent the case to the Regional House of Chiefs at Dodowa for adjudication. He is therefore appalled that his clients without waiting for the verdict by the council, decided with the influences of others, to resort to violent means of taking over the Ga Stool. Chieftaincy matters are adjudicated upon by Judicial Committees of the Regional Houses of Chiefs, the Traditional Councils to the National House of Chiefs. Once you take it there it is only the chieftaincy tribunal that can pronounce judgement one way or the other. It is not the police, it is not anybody else, he explained. He said as a lawyer in the case, he has been embarrassed because what has happened is completely contemptuous to the court. He said for 40 years there has been no good leadership in Accra; for 40 years there has been no development. So that if we are coming unto the new stage it must be for something positive; something that will inspire everybody, not something negative that we dont know how to deal with...; that we are using force to break into stool rooms; no; that we are fighting and firing weapons all over; that is not what I want to hear about people in the Ga Mashie area," he lamented. We should not have two chiefs, one should be moved and one should come to the stool, he said.

Reaction But the Counsel has been disowned by the Gbese Mantse, Nii Ayibonte with the subtle approval of the newly installed chief and the Dzaase People. At a press conference to outdoor the new chief, the Gbese Mantse known in private life as Thomas Okine (and previously CEO of premier league side Accra Hearts of Oak) said neither he nor the Dzaase people have hired the services of Bright Akwetey to adjudicate on their behalf. He was answering a question posed by Joy News' Sammy Darko. He said he was surprised Mr Bright Akwetey would seek to question the action by the Dzaase people insisting his comments were unwarranted. According to Nii Ayibonte, as far he was concerned, there was no king to lead the Ga people until he installed Nii Tackie Adama Latse II as the substantive king.