Osu Homowo

GHANA can earn a lot from tourism, if the media would help to project the positive sides and cultural wealth of the country’s rich festivals, a traditional leader in the Ga-Dangme State has observed.
Addressing the media in Accra at a press soiree on Thursday night, Asafoatse Nii Akapeh II, the Dzaase Asafoatse of the Osu Mankralo Stool, called for collaboration between Ghanaian journalists and traditional leaders to clear the perception that festivals provided platforms for violence and conflict.
He said coverage of festivals in the local media had often highlighted conflict, as a result of which the real essence and richness of music, dance and the vast tourism and marketing potential were lost.
Speaking through one of his elders, Nii Akapeh said this year’s Homowo festival by the chiefs and people of the Ga-Dangme Area will be climaxed with a grand show of music, culture and a magical display by him, which he called “the burning and resurrection of Asafoatse Nii Akapeh” to signify his “ultimate sacrifice to the Ga-Dangme state.”
That show, he said, would take place on Saturday, August 30, at Osu.
Various activities to herald the grand durbar include a feast of the traditional food ‘kpo kpoi’ in all homes in Osu on Tuesday, August 26, 2008.
After that, the youth association will organise a clean-up exercise with the support of Zoomlion to clean the area after the feast.
On Thursday, August 28, 2008, Nii Akapeh will undertake a historical pilgrimage to the Royal Mausoleum and return to the grand durbar on Saturday, August 30.
By an age-long Osu custom, it is incumbent on the Asafoatse (army commander), once in a year, to lead a contingent of musketeers to the royal burial ground (Amanprobi) for a ceremony, which only few eyes must see.
After many hours in the adjoining shrine, he then leads a dusk procession through town to stimulate an all-night carnival.
This is the thriller of what is now known as ‘The Akapeh Show.’
While celebrating the 30th anniversary of his coronation as Asafoatse of Osu in 2006, thousands of tourists and citizens lined the ceremonial street of Ashante Blohum, where the annual procession takes place, expecting what new Nii Akapeh would bring from his pilgrimage to the royal mausoleum.
At the same event last August during the Osu Homowo, Nii Akapeh, fully clothed in his commander’s gear, was carried high in the skies in a kite-like stool ,which was well elevated to attract even people who were afar, and in the full glare of thousands of on-lookers, he disappeared in the skies, leaving his carriers bemused.
There have been other spectacular phases of the Akapeh myth that attract overflowing crowds year in and year out. Each year he keeps patrons of his magical displays wondering what next. But the man himself says he has never had a clue;
“It is spontaneous and by instinct; what takes over me at that moment of trance decides the next move,” he told the Daily Graphic.
For his next appearance on August 30, 2008, only time will tell what he would do and what contribution that would make in the effort to solve some of the dozens of stool-related disputes in the Ga-Dangme area.