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The Homeland Study Group Foundation (HGSF) on Saturday declared a part of Ghana – mainly the eastern zone up to the north – as an independent state.
Led by an octogenarian separatist leader Charles Kormi Kudzordzi, 85, the group that has been in the grips of the law over similar actions said the declaration affects Northern, North East and Upper East regions of the West African country.
The HSGF has over the years been championing the move to secede from Ghana with its headquarters based at the Volta region, previously known as British Togoland.
Kudzordzi, according to a report, “recounted their struggle to restore the pre-independence Western Togoland territory, a German protectorate which was joined to the then Gold Coast to form the new independent country, Ghana on March 6, 1957 under cirumstances the group believed were illegal.
Setting the grounds for the declaration Saturday afternoon, he said “We’ve all witnessed what happen recently when we (Volta region) were forgotten by the government in its budget. Can a parent forget about their children? We’re not their children, so they have forgotten about us.”
He then went ahead to declared that “from midnight today November 16 2019 entering tomorrow, We’re now Western Togoland state.”
He was then whisked away to an unknown location by the supporters.
Kudzordzi had been arrested in May together with eight other members of the group but were released afterwards. They were accused of treason for plotting to create a new independent state named “Western Togoland” for the people of the eastern Volta region.
“The state is no longer interested in the case,” government prosecutor Winifred Sarpong told the trial hearing in Accra, prompting the court to drop the charges.
Treason is punishable by death in Ghana but the sentence is considered abolished de facto as the last execution was in 1993 by firing squad though hanging is also prescribed.
As at the end of 2017, Ghana had 160 individuals on death row compared to 148 in 2016 and 129 in 2015.
Source: Daily Mail GH
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