Wogbemase Asempapa installed Odikro of Abutia-Teti
The Accounts Manager of the Ghana and Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), Mr Victor Yao Wogbemase Asempapa, has been installed the Odikro of Abutia-Teti in the Ho-West District in the Volta Region under the stool name Togbe Okai Debrah III.
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He was installed at the function together with the first-ever queenmother of the Axor Clan of Abutia–Teti, Mama Awude Akua I, who is a member of staff of the Ghana Manganese Company Limited.
The installation ceremony ended the 30 years’ vacancy that existed in the Abutia Traditional Area, which had created a vacuum in connection with the development of the traditional area.
Oath of allegiance
Swearing an oath of allegiance to the Paramount Chief of Abutia Traditional Area, Togbe Abutia Kodzo Gidi V, the new Odikro, Togbe Debrah, said the vacuum created by the absence of such a critical chief in the chain of leadership had a devastating effect on the traditional area.
“Thirty years is a long time to have been without a substantive chief and we must acknowledge the crucial role played by all those who have held our clan and community together during the period,” he said.
He said the Axor clan had fallen behind in matters of development, adding that the clan had become a laughing stock for failing to blaze the trail and that “where we used to set the pace, others have overtaken us”.
Achievements of Axor clan
According to Togbe Debrah, the first person to gain university degree in the whole of Abutia came from the Axor clan and that the first female in the whole of Abutia to finish standard seven also came from the clan with a distinction, in addition to the first female to be awarded a university degree who also came from the clan.
“The first lawyer, the second doctor from Abutia but the first from Teti are all from Axor,” the chief stated.
He, therefore, promised to provide inspired leadership to uplift the achievement of the clan to accelerate the development of the town.
Togbe Debrah asked the people to be conscious of change and conform to changing times, saying that, “we must modernise or become irrelevant”.
The newly installed and maiden queen, Mama Awude, said the occasion was historic and that she was humbled by her nomination as the first to have acceded to the throne with the promise that she was ready to provide a leadership style to foster the development of the community.
A representative of the Axor clan, Reverend C.D. Asempapa (retd), said the long period of restoring the Odikro had created a big gap in development in the traditional area.
Promise of Paramount chief
In a response, the paramount chief, Togbega Abutia Kodzo Gidi V, asked the new chief to live by his oath and be ever ready to champion the cause of development of the traditional area and that he would also be ever ready to pool resources to accelerate the development of the area.