It is no secret that the Ga Mashie people have been experiencing years of repeated issues with chieftaincy.
While there have been several reasons given for these recurrences, Numo Blafo Omaetu III, one of the most prominent traditional priests among the Gas, has offered an even clearer indication of why this is.
Speaking with GhanaWeb TV’s Etsey Atisu on People and Places, he explained that it has resulted from years of the disinterests of certain families in their traditional things.
He explained that for years, some of these families disassociated themselves from tradition, fueled by many wrong perceptions and only return years after to want to claim their rights to the stool.
“There was a time that when it comes to chieftaincy issues, and maybe it is coming to this house, nobody knows whose son it will fall on, and they attribute chieftaincy issues to fetish or paganism or whatever and everybody wants to be seen as a Christian so they don’t want anything to do with it.
“They can even borrow money and send the children out. And some of those people have gone and for how many years, they’ve not returned. Now, some of them are returning and they are causing problems. They’ve gone, they’ve worked all their lives over there, they’ve gotten money and now they realise that they are entitled to the stool.
“Because if you look at something which has happened in Ga Mashie, for example, this issue of Ga Mantse, it’s not about anything – some are people who have been away for long, made their money and now feel they can assume the stool or that position, they use all the monies and whatever they have to fight them and that is what has created this Ga Mantse issue for us,” he said.
Numo Blafo III also demystified some theories that are held about the Ga people, as well as some of their traditions.
Watch it all in this edition of People and Places on GhanaWeb TV below:
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