Obrempong Hima Dekyi addressing the press conference
Obrempong Hima Dekyi, the Paramount Chief of Upper Dixcove Traditional Area in the Western Region, has condemned the lawless acts by some youth that breached the relative peace in both Lower and Upper Dixcove.
“In this 21st Century, we cannot sit for some people to take the law into their own hands and try to breach the peace we have all enjoyed,” Obrempong Dekyi said at a news conference yesterday.
On Monday, some youth suspected to come from Lower Dixcove, wielding clubs and other offensive implements, clashed with the youth from Upper Dixcove.
In the process, the mother of the Omanhene of Upper Dixcove Traditional Area, a sub chief and some relatives of the chief were seriously attacked.
The sub chief whose name was given as Nana Diako Kra was said to have been stripped naked by the attackers and was made to walk on the streets of Upper Dixcove before he was subjected to severe beatings.
Some of the residents in Upper Dixcove, particularly the youth, were also inflicted with cutlass wounds and others had to run for their lives.
Some of the victims were attacked when they attempted to visit a land at Torome in Upper Dixcove which the people and the chief of Lower Dixcove were claiming ownership.
Prior to last Monday’s clash, a similar incident occurred in 2019 at Lower Dixcove during which the Paramount Chief of Lower Dixcove Traditional Area, Nana Kwasi Agyemang IX, was subjected to severe beatings, stripped naked and abducted by the assailants, their counterparts in Upper Dixcove and Monday’s incident appeared to be a retaliatory move.
Obrempong Dekyi called on President Akufo-Addo to intervene in the seeming tension which was centered on a land dispute between the two paramountcies—Upper and Lower Dixcove.
He called for the setting up of a committee to look into the root cause of the problem to help find a lasting solution to it, saying, “What is happening is breaking us up. The people of Upper and Lower Dixcove should continue to live in peace. Residents in both areas should be able to get up in the morning or any point of the day and go about their normal duties without fear or panic.”
He commended the police for their swift intervention in last Monday’s incident and rescuing the victims and sending them to the hospital; adding, “If the police had not intervened swiftly, by now, we might have lost a life.”
He emphasised that a court ruling had made him the overseer of all Dixcove lands, saying “even though Dixcove is divided into two paramountcies, we have one land which I am the overlord of all. The main cause of all these attacks and insecurities in the two towns is as the result of land dispute.”
He said the Lower Dixcove Chief had taken the matter to court on several occasions from the pre-colonial time through to the colonial season and in recent times, and there had been a final judgment to put those disputes to rest.
He then called on the security services to be extra vigilant on the Torome and arrest anyone from Lower Dixcove who try to breach the peace of Upper Dixcove.
He noted, “In 2019, it was all over in the news that I had attacked Nana Kwasi Agyeman. I decided not to talk on the matter because there was a criminal aspect the police and the court were looking at,” adding that “I refused not to speak on that matter because we were waiting for the police to conduct their investigations then at the right time, the truth would come out.”
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi