Palace burial of decapitated king sets tribes on path to war

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Independent
By Elizabeth Davies
14 January 2005


The Andani tribe of the Dagbon kingdom in Ghana does not easily forget. It remembers how, almost three years ago, its beloved monarch was killed by a spray of bullets from an enemy clan, his head and arms cut off and his dismembered body paraded around his torched palace on a spear.

King Yakuba's people have mourned him ever since; his 32 widows cannot hear his name without sobbing. And yet the news that his corpse is to be laid to rest in a newly-built palace has brought little comfort to the Andani because it is now that their tribal war is beginning in earnest. According to custom, a new king could not take the throne until the murdered Yakuba was buried and a new palace built. Now that has happened, the fighting is likely to start all over again.

The brutal feud between the kingdom's Andani and Abudu clans, leading to the murder of the 'Lion of Dagbon", as the King was known, in March 2002, was an act of regicide that appalled modern, democratic Ghana.

A power struggle that had been simmering for 30 years erupted as Abudu warriors clad in military regalia stormed the Andani King's residence and slaughtered him, along with 30 of his elders. By doing so, they assumed they were claiming the throne for one of their own.

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