Akuoko Sarpong: I don’t know ‘porn lady’

Nana Akuoko Sarpong, paramount chief of the Agogo traditional area in Ashanti has bemoaned the withering fortunes of the chieftaincy institution and says traditional customs have ceded so much space to foreign lifestyles to its own detriment.

He told Asempa FM that the decay has become so pervasive that often times traditional authorities, left with no choice, have to ‘hire’ men to perform certain key roles because persons expected to play those roles would renounce their roles on account of being ‘Christians’ or some other association that looks down on chieftaincy.

Nana Akuoko Sarpong was responding to claims by a model blogger to be his daughter and a native of Agogo, and how come a daughter of a respected traditionalist of his caliber ended up with a career in posing nude in front of cameras and posting them on the web for public viewing.

He said though he has personally been informed of the claim, and while all sons and daughters of Agogo are his children by tradition, he does not know the lady model personally and is not her biological father either.

Nana Akuoko Sarpong said African customary practices and traditional lifestyles, including chieftaincy, which played great roles in the upbringing of societies, have so been weakened that they virtually have no more influence in what majority now accepts as the norm.

And this is prevalent even in the typical countryside where traditional colloquialism should ordinarily be forthcoming, and how dare anyone to demand of settlers from the big cities and foreign lands to play roles being rejected by village dwellers and traditional folks.

Nana Akuoko Sarpong said many have wrongly equated many traditional practices, including kingship, with fetishism, and on festive occasions such as ‘Akwasidae’ it is pathetic that citizens no longer know it is proper to visit the chief to greet.

He continued that even lands over which traditional rulers exercise authority are now managed by bureaucrats courtesy the ruling governments who assume the lands and deprive traditional institutions of due royalties to help develop the towns. Chieftaincy has thus become unattractive.
He cautioned that as Africans, we cannot deceive ourselves by continuing to copy other cultures blindly and refuse to learn any lessons thereof that we have no business throwing our own customs away.

Story by Isaac Yeboah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana