The Yaa-Naa Memorial Lecture Secretariat in Dagbon has jumped to the defense of President John Mahama’s administration by disassociating itself from the recent calls by the late Yaa-Naa Yakubu Andani’s family on government to find the killers of the late Dagbon overlord.
Son of the Yaa-Naa who doubled as the family spokesperson, Mohammed Yakubu Andani in an interview with Citi News accused government of using the Yaa-Naa’s death to win political power and abandoned its campaign pledge to find justice for the family.
In a sharp rebuttal, Secretary to the Yaa-Naa Memorial Lecture Secretariat, Mahama Shaibu said President John Mahama’s administration should not be blamed for the delay in finding justice to the Andani family in Dagbon.
Speaking to Citi News, Mahama Shaibu said President Mahama in 2012 did not use the Yaa-Naa’s death as a campaign tool to win more votes in Dagbon.
“As far as John Mahama is concerned in the 2012 elections, he did not make any allusion to the Yaa-Naa’s death and so it looks very difficult for we the secretariat, a think tank for that matter to come and say that government used it as a campaign tool in 2012 and must be held responsible for finding the killers of the Yaa-Naa.”
He described as frivolous any further attempt to politicize the Yaa-Naa’s death and advised the family to tread with caution on such a dicey matter.
“Any call from anybody for government to arrest the Yaa-Naa killers is welcome but we don’t think that the National Democratic Congress should be held responsible.”
Mahama Shaibu disclosed that there will be a parallel organization of the 12th Anniversary of the late Yaa-Naa Yakubu Andani I which comes of Thursday March 27, 2014.
He disclosed that the children of the late Yaa-Naa will be holding theirs in Yendi with a different agenda from what the Secretariat has been doing over the years by way of organizing public lectures and street protestation.
“We are going to issue a statement in Tamale and the main focus of that statement is the need for the people of Dagbon, Abudus and Andanis, the intellectuals, chiefs and elders to come together and see how best we can bring Dagbon together once again.”
He stressed, “The only way we can achieve this is to ensure that all outstanding funerals of chiefs in Dagbon are performed so that that of Yaa-Naa will also be performed and then a new Yaa-Naa will be installed for Dagbon.”
Mahama Shaibu commended both the Abudus and Andanis for their peaceful co-existence and insisted that the people of Dagbon should delink politics from the Yaa-Naa issue.
By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana