加纳国家酋长院主席：

十四世･托比･阿菲德阁下

H.H Togbe･Afede･XIV

2020 年 11 月 12 日，十四世･托比･阿菲德阁下在 2020 加纳国家酋长院主席选举前的演讲全文：

同胞们，尊敬的选举委员会的官员，我们的新闻界朋友，尊贵的受邀嘉宾，女士们，先生们：

我非常高兴和荣幸地热烈欢迎各位出席此次大会。

我和 DaasebreKwebu Ewusi （副主席）要感谢你们的支持，感谢你们过去四年来在委员会发挥的作用，帮助我们加强了酋长院的团结，并在国家事务中发出了我们的声音。

我们还要感谢未能出席的上届酋长院成员。我们失去了像 Nana Alloh、Agonahene、Sakote Naba 等曾为酋长院做过贡献的人。

但令人高兴的是，随着酋长院的壮大，出现了同样优秀的的接班人。其中有两名医生，分别来自阿哈福省和阿散蒂区，和一名来自博诺区的高等法院法官。

本次会议非常重要，因为我们将选举酋长院的新领导班子。因此，这不是一次普通的会议，而是一次非常具有历史意义的会议。它将决定酋长院的未来和加纳传统领导的命运。

看到大家齐聚此地真的很高兴。这就像是在履行我们近四年前上任时作出的神圣承诺，当时我和 Nana Kwebu Ewusi 承诺为我国人民和国家的最大利益服务。

在 2016 年 11 月接手酋长院时，全体成员有五十人。我们在国家酋长院做了许多工作，今年 8 月通过了 LI 2409，并扩大了地区酋长院的成员数量，还建立了六个新的地区院，使我们的成员数量扩大到八十个。

今天，感谢上帝、神和我们的祖先，我们可能有幸连任，或者选出一个新的领导班子来领导我们未来四年的工作。我们的选票将对加纳酋长制度的命运产生深远影响。

同胞们，我们的前辈曾为我们今天引以为豪的地位和肤色而战，我们不仅继承了他们的特权，而且还应继承了他们的义务。

- 保护促进我族遗产，即酋长制度的发展

- 赋予酋长制度荣誉、敬畏和尊严

- 保护酋长制度的独立性，免受政治干预

- 赢得加纳人民的信任

- 尊重我们的祖先及其传承，和我们对他们的誓言

另外，我们不能够：

- 允许外人干涉我们的选择

- 出卖我们与生俱来的自由选择的权利

- 背叛酋长制度，把崇高的机构卖给那些要摧毁它的人。

如果我们这样做，我们将把自己变成伤口愈合后就被丢弃的绷带。大家要记住，酋长制度是我们的遗产，是国家的宝贵财富，我们都有责任保护它的神圣性。

同胞们，当前主流媒体和社交媒体充斥着史无前例的指控，称外部势力试图用金钱诱惑酋长院的成员，想要决定领导人的选举结果。

众多媒体呼吁核实这些指控是否属实的，对此我决定不回应。

我有意识地拒绝就此事向媒体发表意见，是因为我公开承诺过要维护酋长院的形象。国家酋长院绝不能成为一个小丑之家，人们不可以坐在外面而通过乱扔钱来干涉酋长院内部活动。

我们是一个具有良好风俗和光荣传统的集体，我们与高贵的酋长院结合在一起，是国家悠久文化和传统的守护者。

我们地位和皮肤是我们祖先的遗产，祖先们为了保护它们、捍卫伟大王国，有付出了巨大代价的，有遭受了难以言喻艰辛的。

今天，我们是祖先遗产的守护者，我们的每一步都受到神的指引。

正是这一点让我们成为独特而重要的道德传承者。

同胞们，我们要记住：在这个庄严的酋长院，金钱不是加入的必要条件，金钱不应该成为对选举领导人影响力量。我们要抵制金钱诱惑！

我们不能掉入酋长制度下敌人设的陷阱，我们要利用这个机会重建我们正直无畏的影响力量，好让我们在谈论腐败问题时，加纳人民不会要求我们在发表意见前先澄清自己。

同胞们，加纳需要一个强大的酋长机构，作为对抗分裂和赢家通吃等各种政治堡垒。自从加纳恢复民主政治以来，我们一直在处于类似的境况。

同胞们，我们有义务努力为人民带来繁荣和幸福。只有这样才能提升我们的形象、尊严、高贵和崇敬。只有这样，我们才能在当今世界中发挥作用。摆在我们面前的任务无疑是艰巨的。但更严重的是失败的后果。

谢谢，愿上帝保佑我们大家。

FULL TEXT:  Togbe Afede’s 

Speech Before National House

of Chief Selection

The Paramount Chief of Sefwi Anhwiaso Traditional Area, Ogyeahoho Yaw Gyebi II hasbeen declared the new President of the National House Chiefs.

The development comes after an election was held on Thursday, November 12, 2020.

The outgoing President of the National House of Chiefs, Togbe Afede XIV, prior to the election, called for unity and collaboration in the coming years.

Togbe Afede XIV also expressed profound gratitude to his fellow chiefs for the giving him the support over the past four years during his tenure.

Togbe Afede XIV during the elections received 25 votes while Ogyeahoho Yaw Gyebi II’sreceived 47 votes to emerge victorious.

Read Togbe Afede’s full speech prior to the election below:

GENERAL MEETING OF THE NATIONAL HOUSE OF CHIEFS (NHC) ELECTION DAY, 2020: ADDRESS BYTOGBE AFEDE XIV November 12, 2020

Nananom, Your Majesties, officials of the Electoral Commission, our friends from the Press, Distinguished Invited Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a great pleasure and honour for me to welcome you all warmly to this very important General Meeting.

Daasebre Kwebu Ewusi and I would like to thank you for your support, and for the dedication to your various roles at the committee level over the past four years, that helped us to streng then the unity of the House and made our voice heard on national affairs.

We want to thank members of the previous House who have not returned. We have lost the likes of Nana Alloh, Agonahene, Sakote Naba, and others who had served this House very well.

But we are delighted that we have equally capable replacements in our expanded House. Among others, we have two medical doctors from Ahafo and Ashanti Regions, and a High Court Judge from Bono Region. I extend a special welcome to all our new members.

This meeting is a very important one because we shall be electing the new leadership of the House. So this is not an ordinary meeting, but a very historic one, that will define the destiny of the House and of traditional leadership in our country.

We are truly happy to see all of us here today. It is like the fulfilment of the sacred promise we made on our assumption of office almost four years ago, when Nana Kwebu Ewusi and I promised to serve the best interests of our people and our country.

When we took over the leadership of this House in November 2016, the total membership was fifty (50). A lot of work at the NHC saw the passage of LI 2409 in August this year, and the expansion of the membership of the regional houses, and the creation of six new regional houses, giving us an expanded membership of eighty (80).

Today, thanks to God, the Almighty, and the spirits of our ancestors, we will all have the privilege of either renewing the mandate of the leadership of the House, orelecting a new leadership to lead us over the next four years. Our votes will go a long way to shape the destiny of chieftaincy in Ghana.

Nananom, our ancestors, our forebears, fought for the stools and skins that are our pride today. We have inherited not only their privileges, but their obligations too. We now have a unique opportunity to:

• Preserve and contribute to the development of our heritage, that is, chieftaincy, in the motherland

• Bring honour, reverence and dignity to chieftaincy

• Protect the independence of chieftaincy, particularly from political interference

• Earn the trust of the people of this country, and

• Honour our stools and our ancestors, and the oaths we have sworn to them.

 It requires, among others, that, we do not:

• Allow outsiders to influence the choices we make

• Sell our birth right, our right to make free choices, or
• Betray chieftaincy, and sell the noble institution to those who would destroy it.

If we do, we will be turning ourselves into a bandage that is discarded after the wound is healed. Let us remember that the chieftaincy institution is our heritage, anational asset, whose sanctity we all have a responsibility to protect.

Nananom, the mainstream media and social media are a wash with unprecedented allegations of external forces trying to influence some members of this House with money to determine the outcome of the election of its leadership.

I decided not to respond to the numerous media houses calling to verify the truth or otherwise in these allegations. This conscious refusal to speak to the media onthe matter is based on my avowed commitment to protecting the image of this House. The National House of Chiefs must not be a house of jokers, where people can sit outside and interfere in its activities by throwing money around.

We are an assemblage of great and noble men of custom and tradition, bonded in this noble apex House as custodians of our time-tested culture and tradition.

The stools and skins that we sit on are our ancestral heritage.

While some of our ancestors paid the ultimate price to protect them, others suffered untold hardships in defending their great kingdoms. Today, we are guardians of this ancestral heritage, guided by the gods in every step we take. This is what makes us unique and important bearers of moral up rightness.

Nananom, let us be reminded today that money was not part of the qualifying requirements for membership of this august House, and money certainly should not be the influencing consideration for electing its leadership. Let us resist the temptation.

Let us avoid the trap set by enemies of chieftaincy, and use this opportunity to reassert our strength and influence as pinnacles of integrity, so that when we speak about corruption, Ghanaians will not tell us to purge ourselves before pontificating.

Nananom, the country needs a strong chieftaincy institution to serve as bulwark against the divisive, winner-takes-all kind of politics that has been our lot since Ghana’s return to democratic politics.

Nananom, we have an obligation to strive to bring prosperity and happiness to our people. Only then can we enhance our image, dignity, nobility and reverence. And only then can we have relevance in today’s world. The task ahead of us is big, no doubt. But much bigger, are the consequences of failure.

THANK YOU,AND GOD BLESS US ALL.