AGYAKOMA vs. OPUNI AND OTHERS

JUDGMENT OF SOWAH C.J. Sowah C.J. delivered the ruling of the court. This is an application by the defendant Nana Abena Agyakoma, Bompatahemaa, for leave to appeal to this court against two concurrent decisions of the Ashanti Regional House of Chiefs and the National House of Chiefs after the latter house had refused leave. The matter in controversy was whether the plaintiffs’ family, which traced its descent from one Kwankyewaa Bede, was eligible to occupy the Amantena stool of Bompata equally with the defendant’s Atwea (Ataa Tire) family. By a split judgment, Nana Agyakoma secured a verdict which forever denied her opponents any rights of accession to the Bompata stool. This result was arrived at notwithstanding that five members of the plaintiffs’ family had reigned as chiefs of Bompata in the past and their remains were interred in the royal mausoleum. And again, in spite of the fact that the two families shared funeral expenses and did not inter-marry. ...