Founder and leader of secessionist group, the Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF), Charles Kormi Kudjordi, has been reported dead.
Citi News’ sources say, Mr. Kudjordi also known as Papavi, died at his residence in the early hours of Saturday, October 16, 2021.
The 86-year-old was recently arrested and arraigned in connection with the supposed independence declaration in October 2019.
Papavi has always been in favour of a non-violent push for part of the country including Volta and Oti regions to be made an autonomous state known as Western Togoland.
Despite the foundation’s non-violent stance, attacks on police stations and roadblocks in the Volta Region on September 25, 2020, as well as the raid and torching of buses at the Ho State Transport Corporation yard have been attributed to it.
He was first arrested at his residence in Ho on July 28, 2021.
Some of the group’s members have been arrested and slapped with treason felony charges in the past, but those charges were eventually dropped pending further investigations.
The charges have been amended to include, variously, with; treason felony, conspiracy to commit crime, namely, treason felony, conspiracy to commit crime, namely, participating in a campaign of prohibited organisation namely Western Togoland, conspiracy to commit crime, namely, causing unlawful damage.
Papavi’s declaration
The Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF) led by Papavi, announced the imaginary Togoland’s supposed separation from Ghana on their official social media handles on Saturday, November 16, 2019 after a group meeting was held in Ho.
The group has been campaigning for the secession of some parts of Ghana into an independent ’Western Togoland State’.
Leader of the Separatist movement, Mr. Charles Komi Kudzordzi alias Papavi Hogbedetor while addressing a cheerful group of members of the separatist movement, at the time, in the native Ewe language, recounted their struggles to restore the independence of the pre-independence Western Togoland territory, a German protectorate which was joined to the then Gold Coast to form the newly independent country, Ghana on March 6, 1957, under circumstances he believes were ” illegal”.
Citing the recent omission of roads in the Volta Region from the critical roads list in the 2020 budget, Papa Hogbedetor said ”We’ve all witnessed what happened recently when we (Volta Region) were forgotten by the government in its budget. Can a parent forget about their children? We’re not their children, so they have forgotten about us.”
The Octogenarian leader of the separatist movement then declared the ’Western Togo Land’ independent saying “from midnight of November 16, 2019, entering into Sunday, November 17, 2019, we’re now Western Togoland state.”
Okudzeto Ablakwa’s mourns Papavi
The Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, took to social media to mourn Papavi.
Below is his full post:
I am deeply saddened by the news of the passing of Mr. Charles Kormi Kudzordzi — more popularly known as Papavi.
Wishing his soul peaceful repose.
Even though as a unionist and Pan Africanist I didn’t and couldn’t have supported his campaign for Western Togoland secession, there was no doubt that he was particularly passionate about the transformation of the Volta Region.
It is therefore my hope and expectation that fallible as all men are, Papavi’s positive side — which was his unwavering commitment to see a more developed Volta Region despite the frailty of old age would be honoured by an immediate presidential directive from Nana Akufo-Addo to open all our land borders.
This will bring to an end more than a year of economic tribulations of our compatriots leaving in border communities across the country.
Papavi may as well be remembered for his attempts to have us divided when he was alive, the President has it in his power to use the memory of Papavi’s loss to cement our national unity and end the policy discrimination between air travellers and land travellers as all ECOWAS member states have done.
