Acting Chief of Amanase in the Eastern region Obenfo Addo Agyekum (I) has clarified that Okyenhene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin has no hand in the sale of royal cemetery in the community to an investor .
Addressing the media during a press conference, Obenfo Addo Agyekum revealed that a document on the sale of the old cemetery indicates that it was rather sold in 2012 by the late chief of the community Nana Asamoah Dakwaa under the witness of Osabarima Asamoah Asare Ampofo, Abena Asamabea and one teacher Offei.
He said Okyenhene only made ruling in favour of the developer who bought the cemetery 11 years ago when the case was filed at Judicial Committee of Akyem Abuakwa Traditional area.
“Base on this evidence available, I want to categorically state that Okyenhene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin has no hand in the sales of the old Amanase cemetery which was sold by our predecessors so it is not true what is circulating in the media that Okyenhene is behind the sale of Amanase old cemetery land”.
Nana Addo Agyekum (I) further explained that the sale of the old Amanase cemetery generated a dispute between the chiefs and the investor recently of which the case was heard by the Akyem Abuakwa Judicial Committee which further gave a verdict in favour of the investor therefore needed to exhume the bodies.
He said “because of the ruling, we decided to exhume the bodies especially those who are royals to rebury them.We sent the fresh bodies to Suhum government mortuary and we did mass burial for other. There was an issue at Suhum government mortuary so we kept some of the skeletal parts of our demised royal chiefs in the palace so that we immediately acquire a land which will solely be for the burial of the skeletal remains of our royal chiefs and elders”.
“After the old cemetery was sold , I offered my 10 acres land to be used as the new cemetery but under a condition that the old cemetery shouldn’t be sold or the new cemetery I offered to them when it is full the land be returned to me but they also refused to add that clause in the document .Due to the delay in acquiring the land accounted to the keeping of the skeletal remains in the palace but now that we have acquired the land we will perform the necessary rite and burry them and have a good rest” he said.
Suhum District Police Command on Thursday April 21,2023 stormed Amanase Chiefs Palace to retrieve skeletons of exhumed human bodies kept at the palace.
The bodies were exhumed from the royal cemetery in the community after it was reportedly sold to an investor to be used for construction of fuel station.
The bodies exhumed include late chiefs and royals. Two of the exhumed bodies were freshly buried.
Whiles one of the fresh corpses have been reburied ,the other has been kept at the Suhum Government Hospital morgue.
However, the Gyaasehene of Amanase Obenfo Addo Agyekum who doubles as Acting Chief of the community decided to keep the exhumed skeletons of late chiefs of the in a room at the palace.
This created uproar in recent times among some royal family members and residents.
Obenfo Addo Agyekum earlier told Starr News, “the cemetery has been sold to an investor as a result we have to exhumed the bodies .So Okyenhene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin himself ordered that the bodies be exhumed to enable the investor develop the land so we held a community durbar ,invited everybody including pastors, opinion leaders to discuss the matter”.
Source:Mybrytfmonline.com/Obed Ansah
