The family of Ga Manye, Naa Dedei Omaedru III, has threatened to thwart the Ga Traditional Council’s plans to hold their deceased relative’s funeral.
Despite multiple requests for participation, the group claims that the Traditional Council has ignored them when it comes to funeral arrangements.
The head of the family, along with six other individuals, obtained a temporary injunction to prevent the funeral from taking place on Saturday, October 28.
But since they had not received the injunction, Nii Ayikoi Otoo, a member of the funeral committee, insisted that the funeral would proceed as scheduled.
A member of the Ga Manye family named Abdul Salam acknowledged that the injunction has not yet been served to the Ga Traditional Council in an interview with Umaru Amadu Sanda on Eyewitness News on Citi FM.
According to him, the burial and the remains are both prohibited by the injunction.
“We decide who to sue, if the suit fails, it should come from the court. The people [Ga Traditional Council] don’t have respect for the family. We will serve them with the injunction. The injunction is not just on the body, but also the funeral.” he said.
According to Abdul Salam, they went to court because the Ga Traditional Council did not cooperate with the family in making funeral arrangements.
“The choice to go to the court is that our elders at the Ga Traditional Council, the funeral committee, have refused to reason with us,” he said.
“And it is, as though, people are using power rather than the law, and we have been told time without number that the remains of our mother and queen belong to the state. And continuously, we have been told of this, but the fact is the remains belong to the wider family, that is the position of the law. We are talking about Naa Dedei Omaedru III, it’s our job as a family to also invite the Traditional Council because it is from the family that we elected and enstooled our mother and gave her for service to the state.”
He added, “It is our belief that it should be a partnership between the family and the Ga Traditional Council. However, they are pushing us aside. We have been cautioning them to slow down so that we can talk and find a way forward, but our calls have fallen on deaf ears. The body is with the family, and not with them. It is the family that sent the body to the morgue. Everyone knows that the body is with us, but they have said that with or without the body, they will continue with the funeral.”
In December 2022, Ga Manye, Naa Dedei Omaedru III passed away.
On June 19, 2023, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo signed and opened a book of condolences.
