Former President John Agyekum Kufuor, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Vice-President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia; the National Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party, Steven Ntim, among other top government officials last Saturday, 10th February 2024 stormed Ofori Panin Fie, Kyebi in the Eastern Region for the final funeral rites of the late Dr. Joseph Kwame Kyeretwie Boakye Danquah.
The final funeral rites were under the leadership of Okyenhene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin, 58 years after the death of the late Dr. Joseph Kwame Kyeretwie Boakye Danquah also the Twafohene of Okyeman, with the stool name Barima Kwame Kyeretwie Boakye Dankwa I.
The funeral was attended by thousands of indigenes from the Akyem area, other prominent traditional leaders across the country, business moguls, Clergy, Ministers of State, and some Members of Parliament, who also joined the Akyem-Abuakwa Traditional Council to mourn the late Politician and Scholar.
The stool of Twafohene had remained vacant since the passing of Barima Kwame Kyeretwie Boakye Dankwa I, until the enstoolment of Katakyie Kwame Boakye Dankwa II on 16th December 2023, as the successor to his grandfather.
In adherence to customs and traditions, the new occupant of the Twafo stool organized the memorial service for his predecessor last Saturday.
The new Twafohene, Okatakyie Ababio Boakye Danquah, took an oath of allegiance to Okyenhene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin last year.
The late J.B. Danquah, a distinguished figure in politics, scholarship, law, statesmanship, and traditional leadership, passed away on February 4, 1965.
Last week, during the memorial Church Service, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Most Rev. Dr. Abraham Opare Kwakye, urged the family of the late Dr. J.B. Danquah to let go of any pain suffered as a result of the circumstances leading to his death.
According to him, the family should rather live the J.B. Danquah ideals of promoting freedom and justice for all and respect for traditional institutions, and also advised Ghanaians to emulate J.B. Danquah spirit by speaking truth to power without fear.
The Okyenhene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin, in his tribute, narrated that the whole nation stood in grief and shock at the untimely demise of Dr. J.B. Danquah in the Nsawam Medium Security Prison, where he had been detained on the orders of the Kwame Nkrumah-led Convention Peoples Party (CPP) under horrendous circumstances.
Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin said the impact J.B. Danquah made on the understanding and preservation of Akan culture, heritage, and tradition can be seen in his cogitative rendition of a theoretic and scientific treatise of the customary institutions of the Akan people in his celebrated work, “AKAN LAWS AND CUSTOMS—AND THE AKYEM ABUAKWA CONSTITUTION,” published in London in 1928.
The Okyenhene added that, even in his death, J.B. Danquah was punished.
The Nkrumah-led CPP government decreed that the burial was to be held within 12 hours.
His body was not to be publicly laid in state, and there was to be no public mourning and crying.
-BY Daniel Bampoe