Togbe Kojoga V, Chief of Kpando Gadza, has appealed to traditional leaders and the people of the Kpando Akpini State to remain United and focus on attaining the best closure to the issue of its paramountcy.
Speaking at a press conference at Kpando Gadza, Togbe Kojoga said, there was “the need for all to support the successful implementation of the recommendations of the Togbe Kwaku Ayim Committee which seeks to reconcile the disputed Akpini State”.
The dispute between clans of the Akpini State, has been a chieftaincy dispute that spanned several years, affecting the paramountcy and economic growth of Kpando and its surrounding communities and also halting the celebration of its annual festival since 1977.
The Volta Regional House of Chiefs, in 2017 formed the Togbe Kwaku Ayim Committee, which expended significant resources in establishing a middle ground in the decades-long deadlock, and in September 2020, presented an official report outlining processes towards the reestablishment of a paramount chief.
He alleged that, “attempts by some factions within the Akpini State to disrupt the advancing process with litigations, has downplayed the processes to ending the dispute”.
The Chief also appealed to all to consider “Kpando’s loss of heritage to the protracted dispute, and to support the reconciliatory initiatives in unity”, and also to uphold the essence of the rites of January 2018, which signified unity and an end to hostility.
“If we are all one, and have gone through numerous processes just to show how united we are, why would calls from some chiefs be refused and others responded to?”
“I have really established the facts that we need peace. Why would there be a case against Togbe Afendza and a royal Family of Kpando Aziavi, which has been pending before the Hohoe High Court almost two years and without anybody intervening to say we cannot continue in that same manner,” he said.
The Chief also noted that, “major issues of contestation” between some royal houses were being settled, and appealed also to withdraw the case pending before the Hohoe High Court, stressing the importance of a litigation free-paramountcy to the prosperity of the State.