The Ho AsogliAsafo and youth are appealing to the Ho Zongo Community to use dialogue to resolve the Zongo leadership impasse.
At a press conference held in Ho yesterday, TogbeAdase V, Asafofia of Ho Ahoe, said the recent impasse in the Zongo community in the selection of Regional Imam had the tendency of affecting the peace of the Ho Municipality, Asogli Traditional Area and the Volta Region if not addressed.
According to him, it has come to their notice that some self-seeking individuals and groups who are ignorant about the selection of their leadership are going round to foment trouble in the once peaceful Ho Zongo Community.
Some of these individuals have been identified as latter day settlers and remnants of recent disturbances in Hohoe between the Zongo Community and the Gbi Traditional authority.
TogbeAdase V explained that all the leadership crises affecting the Ho Zongo Community which have been brought to the attention of the Asogli State Council have been dealt with expeditiously with the full participation of the major stakeholders from the various tribes.
He said the Asogli chiefs have accepted and incorporated the Zongo leadership into its traditional set up from the days of our forefathers’ right from the time the first set of Muslims arrived in Ho.
TogbeAdase V explained that currently,the following tribes made up the Zongo Community in Ho, Hausa, Yoruba, Zabarama,Kotokoli and Fulani,who are headed by tribal heads known as Sariki.
He said the head of all the Sarikis is the paramount chief of all the Zongo Communities in the Volta Region by established protocols.
According to TogbeAdase, the Sarikis are then introduced to the Asogli State Council after their selection and enskinment.
He confessed that there were initial hitches with the selection and enskinment of the current Zabarama Chief, SarikiAdemuHamaniDagadu as successor to his late father.
TogbeAdase said the leadership of Regional Chief lmam became a challenge between AlhajiMuniru Ali and Alhaji Alfa AnasHamiduand was to be intervened by TogbeAfede XIV but before the case could be called one faction filled a suit in court.
“We required the assistance of the National Chief Imam, Sheikh Osman NuhuSharubutu,” he stated.
He said after listening to the two parties, the Advisory Board came out with the recommendations that Imam AlhajiMuniru Ali be maintained as the Volta Regional Chief Imam and Imam Alfa AnasHamidu appointed as his deputy.
“We, therefore, entreated all state institutions within the region to accord all the legitimate heads of Zongo the needed recognition and protocols.
“We called on the security agencies to begin to apply the needed sanctions to any group of persons or individuals whose main objective is to cause trouble in the Ho Municipality.
“We also want to put on record that the only traditionally mandated father to the new zongo chief in Ho remains in the meantime, TogbeAdzima IV, to restore peace and unity in Zongo,” he stated.
From KafuiGati, Ho
