Ghana Dagbon Chieftaincy Crisis: To What Extent did Government Propaganda Abet Gbewah Palace Ram Down and Evasion of Justice?

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which media propaganda has played out in Ghana’s latest Dagbon chieftaincy crisis. The dispute over the Dagbon kingship, traceable to developments in 1948 between the Abudus and the Andanis was settled by Ghana’s Supreme Court in 1986. This settlement came at the back of many failed attempts by Commissions of Enquiry set up by successive political regimes. In March 2002 disagreements over the performance of certain traditional rites between the Abudu and Andani royal gates culminated in an attack on the Dagbon king, Naa Yakubu II that eventually claimed his life and scores of his retinue. Government’s denial of media reports of attacks on the Yaa Naa, its failure to intervene in the matter, the imposition of media censorship after the regicide and its failure or inability to prosecute persons suspected of complicity in the regicide triggered suspicions of a politically motivated act. This paper investigates media propaganda by government in the run up to the murder of the Dagbon king and the escalation of the conflict and how these techniques of propaganda activated allegations of government shielding the culprits. Using a qualitative design with a purposive sampling approach to generate data, the study found that government propaganda played a huge role in the regicide of Naa Yakubu II and the evasion of justice by his killers. The study is significant given that it is the first study on exclusive media propaganda by government in the Dagbon crisis reportage.