Nii Abola being assisted to unveil the logo of the event
The maiden edition of the Tribute Concert and Awards has been launched in Accra on Wednesday with the veneration of the Ga State for their hospitality to the Yorubas over the past two centuries highlighted by the hosts.
The event, which was launched by Nii Abola, Nii Ahene Nuunoo III on behalf of the Ga Mantse, seeks to honour about 21 Yorubas in Ghana who have excelled in various endeavours.
The Chief News Editor of the Daily Guide newspaper, Alhaji Abdul Rahman Gomda, in his remarks as the guest speaker, said that the accommodating nature of the Ga people which started with King Tackie Tawiah I was among the reasons why the Yoruba community blossomed in Accra.
Peaceful coexistence among the ethnic groups in Accra, he said, has led to intermarriages which has brought forth progenies with both Yoruba-Ga lineage.
Early Yoruba settlers in Ghana, he indicated, migrated from Nigeria via steamers as labourers during the construction of Ussher Fort which was at first called Fort Coeveur.
“Three waves of Yorubas appeared to have made it to the Gold Coast. The first group was made up of labourers brought in by the Dutch for the construction of the fort now known as the Ussher Fort,” he said.
The groups, he narrated, lodged respectively at Prampram, Osu and James Town, all in today’s Greater Accra Region.
He said that there existed some cultural similarities between the two groups, adding that “merging of the strangers (Yorubas) and local Gas was made easier by the fact that the host is said to have migrated from Ile Ife from Yoruba land.”
Osu Alata, Ngleshie Alata is a lost reference to the earlier settlement at the two places by the first wave of Yorubas to Accra, he went on.
Today, he added there are descendants in Accra who through intermarriages claim both Yoruba and Ga ancestry, some of them belonging to the Ngleshie Royal Family.
The Ashiwaju of Yoruba in Ghana, Chief Alhaji Baba Musah pledged the loyalty of the Yoruba in the Greater Accra Region to the Ga Traditional rulers.
He said the landlords of the region which has the capital city of the country must be accorded all the respect and support they deserve, since “it is here that everyone comes to make his money and take same to their hometowns for development. I am part of Accra because I was born and bred here.”
A member of the Council of Elders of the Yoruba community, Abdul Razaq Khailani, speaking on behalf of the Oba, Hamza Peregrino-Brimah said conceiving the idea of awarding people of excellence was a noble enterprise as a society that does not honour its heroes was not worth dying for.
By Issah Mohammed