No chief in Anomabo has been jailed – Traditional Council debunk reports

The Anomabo Traditional Council has debunked reports suggesting that a chief from the Traditional Area has been convicted and jailed.

The Council, denouncing the report, insisted that the said individual, Mr Francis Ebo Mensah, reportedly jailed and fined for contempt, was not a chief in Anomabo.

Nana Mbroba Dabo I, the Paramount Queen Mother of the Anomabo Traditional Area, during a Council meeting on Friday, maintained that no chief from the area had been jailed and that the said Mr Mensah did not belong to the Council.

“No chief belonging to the Council has been jailed and as far as we are concerned, there has been no correspondence to that effect,” she said.

Shedding more light on the case, Nana Ogyafadum Okaa IV, Chief of Awiano and Aboihen of the Anomabo Traditional Area, said Mr Mensah was litigating over a stool with him and had gotten himself enstooled as chief against a court order.

He explained that in 2004, Mr Mensah's family, the Fritz Anane Family, petitioned the Omanhen of the Anomabo to investigate a supposed chieftaincy issue with one late Fritz.

A committee of enquiry was then commissioned by the Omanhen for the case, and it was later found that the said Fritz was never a chief in Anomabo.

However, the committee went beyond its mandate to create a stool for the Family, which was seized by the Omanhen.

After the incident, Nana Okaa was enstooled in 2009 and the Fritz Anane Family resurrected its petition in 2014.

Again, the Omanhen commissioned a three-man committee of enquiry, which investigated the matter for close to two years and found once again that Fritz was not a chief in Anomabo.

“We later saw on Facebook that Francis Ebo Mensah has supposedly been enstooled as Benkumhen of Anomabo Traditional Area under the stool name Okofobo Onye Oman Nana Kwesi Okaa III, which is my stool name.”

“Meanwhile the Benkumhen is Nana Okum Ababio of Egyaa Number 1,” he said.

After a long battle, juggling between the Traditional Council's court and the High Court, the later placed an injunction on Mr Mensah from carrying himself as a chief of Anomabo, and particularly from using the “Okaa” stool name.

Mr Mensah complied for a lengthy time but breached the court’s order in October, last year, by enstooling himself as a chief again.

Consequently, he was cited for contempt together with his Ebusuapanyin by a High Court in Mankessim and sentenced to a 10-day jailed term each, with a fine.

GNA