Togbe Tepre Hodo, the President of the Volta Regional House of Chiefs, has called for an end to chieftaincy disputes through ensuring non-interference in the king making process.

He said various attempts to influence the choice of traditional leaders remained the main cause of chieftaincy disputes, which continued to retrogress the progress of communities.

Togbe Hodo was addressing the House at its final meeting for the year.

‘One area of concern highlighted a couple of times is the many chieftaincy related issues bedevilling the institution and I think the time has come to take bold steps for us to minimise the issues by ensuring that we leave the kingmakers of the various stools to enstool or destool their chiefs,’ he said.

‘Let us resist the influence of money bags and in some cases, politicians, in the decision to enstool the candidate and insist on the right things being done,’

‘We have had enough of these retrogressive approaches to what we believe could be a choice based on merit, integrity, enti
tlement, and fairness.’

‘Lets respect the role of the kingmakers and the end results will be a significant reduction in the incident of chieftaincy disputes and the attendant litigations in our region,’

Earlier, while addressing the festival of the people of Peki and Hohoe, Tobge Hodo said the Volta region had more than 50 chieftaincy disputes that continued to burden the regional house of chiefs.

Hence the House had established mediation and arbitration channels, and urged all parties to take advantage of it to resolve such cases.

The Regional House spent about two hours debating controversies surrounding the induction of chiefs whose legitimacy were being contested, with many calling for the suspension of the induction.

Mr Harry Attipoe, Registrar of the House, said the number of court cases brought against the institution in the region continued to rise, and that inductions could be discontinued in the face of all the controversies.
Source: Ghana News Agency