The Council of Zongo Chiefs in the Ashanti Region has petitioned Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II to intervene over what it said is the wrong selection of a new Zongo Chief.
The Council with a numerical strength of 45 tribal heads from different traditional backgrounds said it has been taken for granted in selecting a successor of the late Sarkin Zongo, Sultan Umar Farouk Saeed.
According to the Council, some Elders from the Hausa tribe without consulting members authoritatively selected a new Chief to succeed the late Sultan Farouk.
The Council of Zongo Chiefs described the development as one that tends to deepen the decade-long disunity and divisions that have existed among tribes in the Zongo Community.
The Council of Zongo Chiefs said Zongo is made up of several tribes and each tribe has its head who is nominated, vetted, and installed to head that tribe by their rituals.
The Council added that the Sarkin Zongo is supposed to be selected and vetted with the input of all the traditional heads who represent their tribes in the community and not a particular tribe.
“This redevelopment has always been the cause and continues to destroy the already fragile peaceful coexistence among Zongo community leaders which needed prior attention and most importantly to bring unity to the Zongo community in general”, the leadership of the Council noted in its petition.
The Council also disassociated itself from the recent appointment of a new Sarkin Zongo and expressed concern that the Zongo Community has no succession plan in its chieftaincy system after the demise of a sitting chief dies.
The Council of Zongo Chiefs stressed in its statement that, “we state emphatically that we are not part of the decision taken by the Hausa elders, and we owe no allegiance to anybody who holds himself as Sarkin Zongo, this is purely Hausa affairs and the chief is Hausa Chief no more”.
The Council has thus petitioned the Asantehene to interview and bring sanitary to the matter that is likely to escalate and deepen the crisis of the Zongo Community.
“We as a matter of urgency and in the supreme interest of peace and tranquility, humbly appeal to His Royal Highness the Asantehene to call for general overhauling and sanitization of the Zongo Chieftaincy system to enable the community thrice and make progress”, the petitioners said
In a related development, a Kumasi High Court has placed an interim injunction on the enskinment of the new Sarkin Zongo.
The Court presided over by his Lordship, Samuel Obeng-Diawuo ordered the 16th defendant, Alhaji Sidi Abdul Kadir to refrain from allowing himself to be enskinned as the next Sarkin Zongo of the Ashanti Region.
The 10-day restraining order also said the 1st to 15th defendants, either by themselves or agents or those acting on their behalf should refrain from enskinning Alhaji Abdul Kadir as the next Sarkin Zongo.
The plaintiff, Alhaji Mohammed Usman Muntawakilu is a resident of Akwatialine in the Ashanti Region.
Read below the Council’s petition to Otumfuo
Below is an injunction from the Court
