Speaker of Parliament Hon. Edward Doe Adjaho has promised the people of Hohoe-Lipke in the Volta Region that efforts will be made to fix the deplorable roads in the area, at least in honor of Dr. Obed Asamoah, a native of the land.
The MP has thus scheduled a meeting with the Minister of Roads Hon Inusah Fusieni, the MP for Hohoe Constituency Dr. Bernice Adiku-Heloo, the Chief Executive Officer of Cocobod, Dr. Stephen K. Opuni and the National Organizer of the NDC, to deliberate on how to fix the deplorable roads in the shortest possible time.
“If not for anything at all, for the sake of Dr. Obed Asamoah we have to fix this road in honor of the immense contribution of Dr. Obed Asamoah, a native of Likpe. We will not wait for him to die before we hurry here to fix the road before his burial. Work will begin on this road within a month” he said.
Hon. Doe Adjaho was speaking at this year’s Lekoyi festival of the chiefs and people of Likpe Traditional Area in the Hohoe municipality.
The Speaker of Parliament used the occasion to plead with all politicians especially the youth, not to allow themselves to be used by anybody to foment trouble in the run up to the general elections and called on the security services to deal ruthlessly with anyone who would want to jeopardize the peace of this country.
The Festival
The biennial festival is celebrated during Easter when all citizens visit the area to raise funds for self-help programmes aimed at improving the lives of the people in the traditional area.
It is a grand home coming for the people of Likpe who travel from all over the world back home to take stock and plan for the next two years.
The festival has always been a rallying point for the Bakpeles since 2008, when the festival was re-activated after a 20-year break.
The inhabitants have been able to carry out several projects such as electrical wiring of all basic schools in Likpe, grading of Likpe roads, renovation of Likpe Health Center at Bakua. They have also embarked on several educational projects including the distribution of dictionaries, exercise books and pens to schools in the area.
This year, the target for the inhabitants is to raise funds to repair broken down equipment at the Likpe Community Water and Sanitation site.
The theme of this year’s Lekoyi Festival “Onward with self-help in development efforts” clearly sums up what the festival stands for.
The Likpes
The people of Likpe refer to themselves as the Bakpele. They belong to the guan language group-a member of the Volta-Comoe sub-family of the Kwa language. They are known to have migrated alongside other guans from the ancient Ghana Empire between AD 1054 and 1076 and arrived in present day Ghana in the early part of the 12th century, and moved southwards along the Volta Valley to their present settlement.
History has it that the Bakpele faced many attacks from the Gbis who settled between the Bakpele to the east, the Ves to the south and Nkonyas to the North West. The attacks reached a crescendo when a pregnant woman who had gone to draw water from the stream was killed by a Gbi man with a bow and arrow. This incident was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, thus the Bakpele decided to go to war against the Gbis.
They started preparing their weapons of war that included chipped stones for the fight.
According to oral history, some Gbi spies witnessed the elaborate preparations by the Bakpeles and quickly reported to their elders who sent emissaries to render an apology for the death of the pregnant woman. This singular gesture prevented a full scale war between the two neighbors.
The name Likpe, which has become the name of the Bakpele, was therefore gotten from what the Gbi spies observed. The word Likpe is an adulteration of ‘Kpe Li Lawo’ translated to mean ‘Stone sharpeners’.
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By: Gratham-J. Mckintosh/citifmonline.com/Ghana