Sekou Nkrumah has attributed the origins of the protracted Bawku chieftaincy conflict to deliberate political interference by his father’s government shortly after independence, making a rare and emotionally charged admission that challenges conventional narratives about the dispute. Speaking on Asaase Radio, the son of Ghana’s first President argued that the Mamprusi Kusasi conflict emerged not from traditional succession disputes but from calculated decisions to manipulate chieftaincy structures for partisan advantage.
According to Sekou Nkrumah, the Convention People’s Party (CPP) government dismantled a colonial era traditional authority system that had maintained relative stability and created a parallel chieftaincy structure designed to serve political interests rather than preserve custom. He described how Dr. Kwame Nkrumah installed a rival chief in Bawku, effectively creating two competing claims to the paramount position and permanently destabilizing the traditional governance system.
The admission carries particular weight given the source. Few figures would possess the intimate knowledge and moral authority to critique Kwame Nkrumah’s legacy from within the family itself. Sekou Nkrumah presented his assessment while reading from a document he authored titled The Bawku Chieftaincy Dispute: History, Legitimacy and Political Interference, which traces how colonial and post independence policies reshaped traditional governance in Ghana’s Upper East Region.
He explained that colonial authorities had maintained a single recognized traditional authority in Bawku, ensuring clarity about succession and minimizing disputes. That arrangement changed after independence when political considerations began overriding customary legitimacy. Chiefs perceived as opposing the ruling party faced pressure or removal, while political loyalists received elevation regardless of traditional qualifications.
The Mamprusi Kingdom, particularly the Bawku traditional area, became politically targeted due to its perceived lack of support for the CPP. Sekou Nkrumah referenced a famous warning attributed to President Nkrumah in which he openly cautioned chiefs about the consequences of opposing his political agenda. The threat was blunt: those chiefs aligned with the government would be honored, while those who stood against it would be forced to flee so quickly they would leave their sandals behind.
Electoral patterns from the early independence period reveal the political calculus behind these interventions. During the 1954 elections, Mamprusis largely supported the Northern People’s Party (NPP), while Kusasis aligned with the CPP. That political divide, Sekou Nkrumah argued, hardened ethnic lines and transformed what should have been manageable political competition into a recurring chieftaincy conflict with violent consequences.
Although critical of his father’s actions, Sekou Nkrumah said he understands the political thinking that motivated them. Dr. Nkrumah had closely studied electoral patterns during the 1951, 1954 and 1956 elections, identifying communities and groups he believed would best support his vision of national development. In that context, traditional authority became a tool for consolidating political power and integrating chieftaincy into a centralized modern state.
The manipulation of chieftaincy structures formed part of a broader CPP strategy, but this integration often came at the expense of long established customs and legitimacy. The consequences extended far beyond the immediate political moment. What began as tactical interventions to secure electoral support evolved into entrenched positions that successive governments found politically convenient to maintain rather than resolve.
Sekou Nkrumah emphasized that the conflict persisted beyond his father’s overthrow in 1966. The National Liberation Council (NLC), which seized power through a coup, enacted the Chieftaincy Amendment Decree 112, installing a Mamprusi as the Bawku Naba who ruled until 1980. This decision appeared to reverse the CPP’s intervention, but rather than resolving the underlying dispute, it simply shifted advantage to the other side while deepening divisions.
When the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) overthrew the NLC government in 1981, it replaced Decree 122 with PNDC Law 75, known as the Chieftaincy Restoration Law. This legislation reinstated a Kusasi as the Bawku Naba, whose lineage has ruled until the present day. The pattern reveals how successive regimes continued exploiting the same political fault lines created during the Nkrumah era, using chieftaincy appointments to reward supporters and punish opponents.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), which emerged from the PNDC, inherited this legacy. Sekou Nkrumah’s critique extends to all governments that have followed, suggesting they share responsibility for perpetuating a conflict that could have been resolved if political will existed. He argued that solutions are available but implementing them would require political sacrifices many governments remain unwilling to make.
The Bawku crisis has become sustained by political convenience rather than tradition, making genuine resolution extremely difficult. Each administration faces incentives to maintain arrangements that favor their political base in the region, even when those arrangements perpetuate violence and instability. Breaking this cycle would mean accepting short term political costs for long term stability, a calculation few governments have been willing to make.
Recent violence underscores the ongoing human cost of this political convenience. In October 2024, renewed clashes killed approximately 15 people, including an 11 year old girl shot dead in her home. Three individuals were gunned down near the Ghana Highways Authority office, while 20 others sustained injuries. Security forces struggled to contain the violence, hampered by inadequate troop numbers and insufficient vehicles to respond effectively across the spreading violence.
The conflict has transformed Bawku from a thriving commercial hub into what President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo described in his 2024 State of the Nation Address as a wasteland of destruction and distrust. Resources that could develop the region instead fund military deployments, curfews and emergency responses. Educational institutions face repeated closures, healthcare delivery suffers disruption, and infrastructure development remains stalled.
Ghana’s National Security apparatus reports that the country faces over 503 chieftaincy, ethnic and land related disputes nationwide, with 130 posing existential threats to community security and national stability. Bawku represents the most urgent of these conflicts, sitting near Burkina Faso’s volatile border where extremist groups have expanded operations. Security analysts warn that unresolved local conflicts create opportunities for terrorist infiltration and recruitment.
The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has led recent mediation efforts following his successful resolution of the Dagbon crisis in northern Ghana. The government has backed these efforts, though implementation remains contentious. In late December 2024, security forces removed Alhaji Seidu Abagre from Bawku as part of recommendations from the Otumfuo led mediation, marking a concrete if controversial step toward implementing the peace process.
However, the Dagbon and Bawku conflicts differ in crucial respects. Dagbon represented an internal succession dispute within a single ethnic group with an established rotation system between royal gates. Bawku involves competing claims between distinct ethnic groups, complicated by the colonial era administrative decisions and subsequent political interventions that Sekou Nkrumah described. These complications make resolution more challenging and require addressing historical injustices alongside contemporary security concerns.
Sekou Nkrumah’s willingness to publicly critique his father’s role represents an unusual moment of historical accountability. Many descendants of prominent African leaders avoid examining their family legacies critically, preferring to defend past actions or remain silent about controversial decisions. His detailed research and public statements suggest a commitment to understanding how political choices created lasting problems.
The broader question his analysis raises concerns how African states should handle traditional authority within modern governance structures. Colonial powers manipulated chieftaincy for administrative convenience, and post independence governments continued these practices for political advantage. Breaking this pattern requires rethinking the relationship between traditional and modern authority, establishing clear legal frameworks for succession disputes, and removing chieftaincy from partisan political calculations.
Whether Ghana can achieve this remains uncertain. The political incentives that created and sustained the Bawku conflict persist today. Changing them would require constitutional reforms, consensus across party lines, and a willingness to prioritize national stability over regional political advantage. Given Ghana’s polarized political environment, such cooperation seems unlikely in the near term.
For now, Sekou Nkrumah’s admission stands as a remarkable piece of historical reckoning. By acknowledging his father’s role in creating a conflict that has claimed hundreds of lives over decades, he challenges Ghana to confront uncomfortable truths about how political expediency shaped the nation’s trajectory after independence. Whether this reckoning leads to meaningful change in Bawku depends on whether contemporary politicians prove willing to make the sacrifices their predecessors avoided.
