UNIVERSITY OF GHANA NAWURI-GONJA CONFLICT, 1932-1996 BY CLETUS KWAKU MBOWURA THIS THESIS IS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, LEGON IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF PHD HISTORY DEGREE DECEMBER, 2012 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh i DECLARATION I hereby declare that except for references to other works which have been duly acknowledged, this thesis is the result of my own original research, and that it has not been presented, either in part or in whole, for another degree elsewhere. …………………………… …….………… Cletus Kwaku Mbowura Date (Candidate, SID: 10046227) University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ii CERTIFICATION We hereby declare that the writing of this thesis was supervised in accordance with the guidelines on supervision of thesis as laid down by the School of Research and Graduate Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. …………………………… ………..……………… Prof. R. Addo-Fening Date (Supervisor) …………………………… ………..……………… Prof. A. K. Awedoba Date (Supervisor) …………………………… ………..……………… Dr. D. E. K. Baku Date (Supervisor) University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Content Page DECLARATION ................................................................................................................. i CERTIFICATION .............................................................................................................. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................. iii LIST OF MAPS ................................................................................................................ vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .............................................................................................. viii ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER ONE ................................................................................................................. 1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Background Study of Alfai ........................................................................................... 1 1.2 Definition of Concepts and Terms ................................................................................ 7 1.2.1 Conceptualizing the term ‘Ethnicity or Ethnic Group’ .............................................. 7 1.2.2 Conceptualizing Conflict ......................................................................................... 12 1.2.3 Understanding the concept of ‘Allodial rights’ in land ........................................... 13 1.3 Statement of Problem ................................................................................................. 15 1.4 Research Objectives and Questions ............................................................................ 16 1.5 Historiographical Context ........................................................................................... 17 1.6 Literature Review ....................................................................................................... 26 1.7 Justification of the study ............................................................................................. 37 1.8 Justification of Time Frame ........................................................................................ 37 1.9 Research Methodology and Design ............................................................................ 38 1.10 Organization of the Study ......................................................................................... 40 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh iv CHAPTER TWO .............................................................................................................. 42 THE NAWURI AND THE GONJA IN PRE-COLONIAL TIMES ................................ 42 2.0 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 42 2.1 Location of Alfai ......................................................................................................... 42 2.2 Origin and Settlement History of the Nawuri ............................................................. 44 2.3 The origins and foundation of Gonja .......................................................................... 47 2.4 Interrogating the allodial rights to Alfai Lands in the pre-colonial period ................. 53 2.4.1 Autochthonous rights ............................................................................................... 57 2.4.2 Conquest .................................................................................................................. 59 2.4.3 Overlordship ............................................................................................................ 70 2.5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 76 CHAPTER THREE .......................................................................................................... 77 UNDERSTANDING THE COLONIAL ANTECEDENTS OF THE NAWURI-GONJA CONFLICT, 1899-1932 ................................................................................................... 77 3.0 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 77 3.1 Imposition of German Rule on Alfai: Antecedents .................................................... 77 3.2 German colonial rule in Alfai: Nawuri resistance and its impact ............................... 83 3.3 The British era and the system of Indirect Rule ......................................................... 91 3.4 The Ideological Underpinnings of Indirect Rule ........................................................ 93 3.5 The Yapei Conferences ............................................................................................... 97 3.6 The Amalgamation Policy ........................................................................................ 106 3.7 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 112 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh v CHAPTER FOUR .......................................................................................................... 113 THE POLITICAL CAUSES OF THE NAWURI-GONJA CONFLICT ....................... 113 4.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 113 4.1 The Alfai Native Authority and Nawuri-Gonja Confrontations ............................... 113 4.2 The Alfai Local Council and Nawuri-Gonja Confrontations ................................... 125 4.3 Local Council Elections in Alfai .............................................................................. 129 4.4 International Politics of the Togoland Question ....................................................... 137 4.5 Chieftaincy disputes .................................................................................................. 143 4.5.1 The Concept of Chief............................................................................................. 143 4.5.2 Proof of Chieftaincy in Nawuri before Amalgamation ......................................... 147 4.5.3 The Dispute over the Kanankulaiwura Skin .......................................................... 152 4.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 157 CHAPTER FIVE ............................................................................................................ 159 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CAUSES AND THE DRIFT TOWARDS THE NAWURI- GONJA CONFLICT ....................................................................................................... 159 5.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 159 5.1 Social and Cultural Factors ....................................................................................... 159 5.1.1 Attempts at interference in Nawuri Religious and Cultural Traditions ................. 159 5.1.2 Ethnic Identity and Stereotyping ........................................................................... 165 5.1.3 Western Education and the Nawuri Elite ............................................................... 166 5.1.4 Ethnic Activism of the Gonjaland Youth Association .......................................... 168 5.2 Economic factors ...................................................................................................... 174 5.2.1 Tributes and compensations .................................................................................. 174 5.2.2 Land allocation and utilization in Alfai ................................................................. 176 5.3 War Clouds on the Horizon ...................................................................................... 184 5.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 188 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh vi CHAPTER SIX ............................................................................................................... 190 THE NAWURI-GONJA CONFLICT: PHASES, OUTCOMES AND RESOLUTION 190 6.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 190 6.1 Phases of the Nawuri-Gonja conflicts ...................................................................... 191 6.1.1 The First Phase (April 1991 to June 1991) ............................................................ 191 6.1.2 The Second Phase (The Second Atorsah Yakoro) – June 1991 ............................ 197 6.1.3 The Third Phase – the Alhaji Musah battle ........................................................... 202 6.2 Outcomes of the Nawuri-Gonja conflict ................................................................... 205 6.3 Resolving the Nawuri-Gonja Conflict, 1991-1996 ................................................... 208 6.3.1 The Bimbilla Na’s Mediation of June 1991 .......................................................... 208 6.3.2 The Ampiah Committee of Inquiry, 1991 ............................................................. 209 6.3.3 The Permanent Peace Negotiation Team (PPNT) and the Kumasi Accord .......... 212 6.4 Reasons for the Failure of the Attempts to Resolve the Nawuri-Gonja Conflict ..... 213 6.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 217 CONCLUSION............................................................................................................... 219 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................... 227 GLOSSARY ................................................................................................................... 249 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh vii LIST OF MAPS Map 1: Map showing the location of Alfai, which is indicated by the dark shaded area on the map. ………………………………………………….. 6 Map 2: Alfai as it appeared on Karte von Togo, 1906. …………………………… 43 Map 3: Map Showing Nchumuru, Alfai and the Estuary of the Daka River ……… 66 Map 4: Kabre, Basari and Konkomba Areas in Modern Togo and the Route to Nawuri Area................................................................................................. 68 Map 5: A map showing ethnic groups with allodial rights to lands in the Northern Territories ……………………………………………………… 75 Map 6: The Neutral Zone ………………………………………………………….. 80 Map 7: Alfai Local Council Area …………………………………………………. 131 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Special thanks to God Almighty for seeing me through the completions of this study. I am also indebted to a number of people and organizations, too many to mention. I must, however, render thanks to my supervisors, Prof. R. Addo-Fening, Prof. A. Awedoba and Dr. D.E.K. Baku, for their enthusiastic and diligent assistance and for painstakingly going through my work and making valuable comments, suggestions and corrections. I acknowledge, with profound appreciation, the immeasurable assistance offered me by the staff of the Public Records and Archival Administration Division (PRAAD) in Accra and Tamale, whose auspices the material for this study was obtained. I also thank my family and staff of the Department of History, University of Ghana, for their enormous support. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ix ABSTRACT This study examines the causes of the Nawuri-Gonja conflict, which broke out in 1991 over allodial land rights. In Alfai, as is the case of other Ghanaian societies, the modes of measuring allodial land rights are embedded in the historical traditions of the people. By right of autochthony and autonomy, allodial land rights in Alfai in the pre- colonial period resided in the Nawuri. However, Alfai’s encounters with the colonial enterprise led to the evolution of new constructs of allodial rights in land, which challenged established traditions and provided the opportunity for the immigrant Gonja community to appropriate land. In 1913 the Germans issued a warrant to Kanankulaiwura Mahama Karatu, the Gonja head chief in Alfai then, making him the overlord of the area for the sake of political expediency. This began Gonja rule over the Nawuri, which was made irreversible when the British colonial authorities subsumed Alfai into the Gonja kingdom in 1932 following the introduction of indirect rule in the Northern Territories. This led to series of encounters between the autochthonous Nawuri and their Gonja overlords over allodial rights in land, which expressed itself in social, political and economic debate in Alfai in the colonial and post-colonial times. By the dawn of independence, Alfai continued to remain as an integral part of the Gonja Traditional Area, thus strengthening Gonja claim that the land belonged to them. As the Nawuri and the Gonja continued to jostle each other over allodial land rights in Alfai in the post-colonial times, and as the dispute remained unresolved, war between them became a possibility. This study argues that the conflicting claims over allodial land rights in Alfai between the Nawuri and the Gonja served as the nexus that connected the multiplicity of layers of issues that underlay the conflict. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 1 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Study of Alfai Until 1991 when war broke out between the Nawuri and the Gonja, Alfai 1 was settled by the Nawuri (the indigenes), the Gonja (the overlords) and other immigrant ethnic groups. The immigrant ethnic groups included the Konkomba, Bassari, Kotokoli, Chakosi, Kabre, Dagomba, Ewe, Ada and some Akan extracts. 2 Each of the ethnic groups had their overlords. Historically, in every Nawuri settlement, there was a Nawuri overlord or chief with jurisdiction over the settlement. However, for a brief period – 1951-1988 Kpandaiwura Nana Atorsah Agyeman I (1951-1968) doubled as the Nawuriwura, while Nawuriwura Nana Bakiansu (1968-1988) doubled as the Kpandaiwura, though all the Nawuriwuras with the exception of Nana Bakiansu were Kpandai Nawuri. This was not dictated by any historical political tradition; it was mainly for the purposes of administrative expediency. It was intended to consolidate power in the hands of the Nawuriwura to make him effective and enhance his mobilization of Nawuri resources to resist Gonja overlordship. With the exception of the Konkomba and the Bassari, it is difficult to establish the exact date of the immigration of other immigrant ethnic groups to Alfai. In 1922, a 1 The area has been variously referred to as Alfai, Nawuri area, Nawuriland and Kanankulai. Archival documents show a preponderate use of the name ‘Alfai’ to refer to the area, though the Nawuri prefer to refer to it as Nawuriland or Nawuri Area. For the sake of simplicity, I prefer to refer to the Nawuri Area in present-day Northern Region of Ghana as ‘Alfai Area’ or ‘Alfai’ for short. For, Alfai has been used as the cognate name of the Nawuri area in many of the colonial documents. Etymologically, Alfai is derived from the Nawuri words alfa and ai which mean ‘Muslim’ and ‘home’ respectively. Historically, Alfai was initially used to refer to the home of the first Muslim settler in the Nawuri area. It was the colonial authorities who later broadened its usage to refer to the Nawuri settlements in present-day Northern Region. It is significant to note that the name does not cover the Nawuri settlements across the Oti River in present-day Volta Region. These settlements include Njare, Disare, Awuratu, Oprusai, Linkpan and Suruku, and many more. 2 The indications were that prior to the 1930s, the authority of Nawuri chiefs was acknowledged though the Gonja denied such assertions. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 2 small band of the Konkomba and the Bassari arrived in Alfai. 3 From then onwards, many Bassari and Konkomba arrived in Alfai. The Konkomba-Bassari expression “Ncha- nawul”, meaning (“I am going to Nawuri area or Nawuriland”) was reference to the known migration of the Konkomba and the Bassari to Alfai. 4 Most of the early Konkomba and Bassari immigrants settled with the Nawuri and thus established a good rapport with them. This probably explains why there were more intermarriages of the Nawuri with the Konkomba than any other ethnic group in Alfai. Some Gonja claim that Nawuri-Konkomba intermarriages were the key reasons why the Konkomba supported the Nawuri in the second and third phases of the war. 5 Apart from intermarriages between the Nawuri and the Konkomba, there were a few intermarriages between the Nawuri and the Gonja; the Nawuri and the Bassari; and the Gonja and the Kotokoli. Between 1931and 1948, the population of Alfai increased by over one hundred and forty percent, with the population of Kpandai, the capital, multiplying by about six times. 6 In 1951, the population of the various ethnic groups in Alfai was given as follows: Basari 1,863; Chakosi 211; Dagomba 232; Gonja 436; Konkomba 2,281; 3 J. Dixon, Report of Mr. J. Dixon, Administrative Officer Class I, on the Representations Made to the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations Organization, Concerning the Status of the Nawuris and Nanjuros within the Togoland Area of the Gonja District (Accra, Gold Coast Government, 1955), 10. Dixon was mandated in 1955 by the Government of the Gold Coast to investigate local government arrangements and grievances of the Nawuri and the Nchumuru in Alfai and Nchumuru areas of the East Gonja District. It is important to note that the Nchumuru are divided over three regions in Ghana – Northern, Volta and Brong Ahafo Regions. “Nanjuro” is the name of the Nchumuru in Northern Region. They are so called because “Nanjuro”, Nchumuru capital in Northern Region, led the agitation of the Nchumuru in the then Northern Territories against Gonja rule. Some of the Nchumuru settlements under Nanjuro included Begyamesi, Ekumidi, Kabeso, Jamboai, Kachinke, among others. 4 Ninkab Manim: “Evidence to Ampiah Committee in Tamale on 31 October, 1991.” See: Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Gonjas, Nawuris and Nanjuro Dispute, 1991, Part II, 97. This committee is popularly called the “Ampiah Committee” (hereafter, Ampiah). The Ampiah Committee of Inquiry was established by an Executive Instrument 23 (E.I. 23) by the Government of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) on September 27, 1991, to investigate the causes of the Nawuri-Gonja conflict. For the membership and report of the committee, see chapter six of this study. 5 Some of the Gonja informants, who held this view included the following: Bawa Alhassan of Kpembe, Salifu Sachibu of Kpembe, Mohammed Jafa of Katiejeli, Dramani Imoro of Salaga, Karimu Maliya Fatima of Kpembe and Hajia Laadi of Katiejeli. 6 Aitol, T.E., Ghana Population Atlas (Accra: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, November 1959). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 3 Kotokoli 510; Nawuri 1,195; and Nchumuru 250. 7 Between 1948 and 1970, the populations of the various Nawuri settlements increased tremendously. 8 For example, the population of Kpandai increased from 1,718 inhabitants in 1948 to 4,438 in 1970; that of Kabonwule from 309 in 1948 to 784 in 1970; and Kitare from 211 in 1948 to 991 in 1970. 9 In 1984, the number of inhabitants in Kpandai, the capital of Alfai, stood at 5252 of which only 700 were Gonja. 10 The rest of the inhabitants were primarily Nawuri. 11 Alfai is both a farming and fishing area. The land is suitable for the cultivation of food crops and animal husbandry. Indeed, in 1935, the inhabitants of Alfai were described as: an industrious hardworking people. They produce a surplus of foodstuffs for sale and rear good herds of cattle, which are said to be some of the finest in the Northern Territories. 12 Of the plethora of food crops cultivated in Alfai, yam is the dominant with cattle and goats as the dominant livestock. 13 There are also fishing communities dotted along the tributaries of the Oti River in Alfai, particularly Kitare, Njare, Bladjai, Nkanchina, Awuratu and Linkpan. Since 1980 Northern Ghana has witnessed intermittent eruptions of either intra- ethnic or inter-ethnic conflicts and: 7 PRAAD (Tamale) NRG 8/2/210 Nawuri and Nchumuru under United Nations Trusteeship: Letter from the Chief Commissioner for the Northern Territories to the Secretary, Ministry of Defence and External Affairs, dated February 1, 1951. 8 “Population Census Special Report D”, Northern and Upper Regions of Ghana, 1970”, Census Office, Accra, December 1971, 25. 9 Ibid. 10 Population Census of Ghana, 1984 (Ghana Statistical Service, 1984). 11 Justice Ampiah, Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Gonjas, Nawuris and Nanjuro Dispute (Accra: Gov. of Ghana, 1991), part II, 215. 12 Colonial Office Report on British Sphere of Togoland for 1935, p.12. 13 Other food crops cultivated in Alfai include maize, sorghum, cassava and beans. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 4 the tolls in terms of lives lost, injuries to residents, destruction of property including loss of critical social and economic infrastructure that the conflicts have caused have been staggering. 14 There have been conflicts between the Nanumba and the Konkomba in 1981, 1994 and 1995; between the Bimoba and the Konkomba in 1984, 1986 and 1989. Other ethnic wars that occurred in Northern Ghana over the past three decades included the intra-ethnic conflict of the Dagomba at Karaga and Gushiegu in 1991 and another at Yendi in 2002 that resulted in the murder of Ya-Na Yakubu II. 15 In addition, one may mention the Mossi-Konkomba war in 1993; and the intra-ethnic war of the Gonja at Yapei and Daboya in 1992 and 1994, respectively. Furthermore, over the past three decades, the Mamprusi and the Kusasi have fought about four times in Bawku. In 1991 and 1992 the Nawuri and the Gonja fought each other three times over conflicting claims to allodial land rights in Alfai. By and large, the root causes of inter-ethnic conflicts in Northern Ghana are traced to the colonial policy of subordination which resulted in the amalgamation of different ethnic groups for the sake of political expediency. However, there are dichotomies in the local issues of conflict generated by the operation of the colonial system. For instance, the Nawuri-Gonja conflict was over claims to allodial rights in Alfai. This was not the case of the Konkomba-Nanumba and Kusasi-Mamprusi conflicts. The underlying cause of the Kusasi-Mamprusi conflict was the dispute over chieftaincy in Kusasi-dominated areas though encapsulated by ownership rights in these areas. The 14 N.J.K. Brukum, The Guinea-Fowl, Mango and Pito Wars: Episodes in the History of Northern Ghana, 1980-1991Accra, Ghana Universities Press, 2001, 1. 15 With the exception of the Bimoba-Konkomba wars, almost all the inter-ethnic wars in Northern Region have been between the so-called “minority” and “majority” while the intra-ethnic ones have been among the majority, largely stemming out of chieftaincy dispute. For a detailed account of the murder of Ya-Na II, see Ibrahim Mahama, The Murder of an African King: Ya-Na Yakubu II. New York, Vantage Press, 2009. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 5 Konkomba-Nanumba conflict was caused by Konkomba agitations for autonomy and recognition of their identity. This study did not offer a comparative discussion of the Nawuri-Gonja conflict and other ethnic conflicts in the Northern Region. Rather, it discussed the political situation in Alfai, offering an understanding of how local actors exploited colonial and post-colonial situations to arouse the sentiments of the Nawuri and the Gonja against each other. Thus, from a non-comparative perspective, the study discussed the causes; conduct and resolution of the Nawuri-Gonja conflict, and argued that the conflicting claims over allodial rights in land by the Nawuri and the Gonja was the nexus that connected the multiplicity of issues that underlay the Nawuri-Gonja conflict. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 6 Map 1: Map showing the location of Alfai, which is indicated by the dark shaded area on the map. Source: Lands Department, Accra, (n.d.), map of Alfai adapted University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 7 1.2 Definition of Concepts and Terms 1.2.1 Conceptualizing the term ‘Ethnicity or Ethnic Group’ The definition of the term ethnicity or ethnic conflict is a problematic issue. As Lentz puts it, “ethnicity is an enigmatic, unstable and problematic notion.” 16 Indeed, the terms ‘ethnicity’ and ‘ethnic group’ are often used in the academia as terms that “frequently absorb, overlap or replace other concepts such as ‘race’ or ‘tribe’ which have come to be seen as problematic for one reason or the other.” 17 Ethnicitydraws on all aspects of culture;it draws from traditions of origin, cultural and social traits including religion and language. It shapes societies and their histories and also determines the patterns of actions and attitudes of a group of people. Indeed, it possesses an immense power to dictate the likes, dislikes, biases and idiosyncrasies of a group of people. Scholarship on the definition of ethnicity or ethnic groups is varied.John Middleton’s four-volume work, Encyclopaedia of Africa South of the Sahara published in 1997 is said to containthe authoritative and standard definition of ethnicity in Africa. 18 In his book Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference, Barth identified ethnicity as a form of social organization and shifts the focus of studies on ethnicity to the ethnic boundary that defines the group rather than the cultural traits embedded in it. 19 Comaroff considers ethnicity as a “totemic consciousness”, a consciousness which arises in comparison and in contrast with other 16 C. Lentz, Ethnicity and the Making of History in Northern Ghana (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2007), 3. 17 C. Lentz and P. Nugent (eds.), Ethnicity in Ghana: the Limits of Invention ( London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 2000), 3 18 Many but fruitless attempts were made to obtain a copy of the book. There were hints of the availability of the book in the library of the Institute of African Studies, Legon, but attempts to obtain a copy had been painfully unsuccessful. This, notwithstanding, references were made to definitions of ethnicity by other authorities. 19 Fredrik Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference (London: Allen and Urwin, 1969), 15. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 8 ethnic groups. 20 Quaker-Dokubo applies the term ethnicity or “ethnic group” in reference to “organized activities by persons linked by a consciousness of a special identity, who jointly seek to maximize their corporate political, economic and social interest.” 21 Thomson defines an ethnic group as “a community of people who have the conviction that they have a common identity and common fate based on issues of origin, kinship, ties, traditions, cultural uniqueness, a shared history and possibly a shared language.” 22 The above definitions show that ethnicity “remains an imprecise terminology that can be used for several forms of social identity.” 23 Notwithstanding the plurality of the definition of ethnicity, two perspectives on it exist. The first is the Primordialist perspective, which argues that ethnicity is rooted in past historical traditions, which is based on a presumption of a shared descent or tradition of origin. The implication of this argument is that ethnicity in Africa predated the operations of the colonial enterprise; it is rooted in the pre-colonial historical traditions of African peoples and societies. The Constructionists, on the other hand, argue that ethnicity is mutable, malleable and subject to manipulations. The Constructionist view has led to a proliferation of studies on ethnicity which overemphasized the role of the colonial enterprise, missionaries, anthropologists and politicians in the creation and reshaping of the notions of ethnic categories and stereotypes in Africa. The argument is that prior to colonization, Africans belonged simultaneously to a bewildering variety of social networks – nuclear and extended families, lineages, age sets, secret societies, village communities, diasporas, chiefdoms, states and empires. Loyalties and identities were complex, flexible and relatively amorphous, and certainly did not add up to clearly demarcated tribes living in well- defined and bounded territories. These multiple identities ... continued into the colonial period. 24 20 John Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, Ethnography and the Historical Imagination (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), 51. 21 As quoted in Jude Cocodia, op.cit., pp. 910-930. 22 As quoted in Jude Cocodia, pp. 910-930. 23 Steve Tonah (ed.), Ethnicity, Conflicts and Consensus in Ghana (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2007), 7. 24 Lentz and Nugent, op.cit., 5. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 9 It is further argued that the introduction of Christianity, Western education, industrialization, globalization and Westernization led to the proliferation of new identities in Africa. Largely, however, the Constructionists argue that the invention of ethnic groups or tribes was a product of colonial policy, but was “nourished by the active participation of African actors who moulded political and cultural traditions in accordance with their own self-interest.” 25 In this study, the term ethnicity or ethnic group is used to refer to a consciousness of a common identity of a group of people based on a collective sense of a distinctive history, culture, customs, norms, beliefs and traditions. This study combines the Primordialist and Constructionist arguments of ethnicity as it discusses ethnicity in Alfaihistorically from the pre-colonial to the post-colonial times. This approach breaks through the barriers of pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial notions and characteristics of ethnicity and helps to fully account for the dynamics, complexities and nuances of ethnicity in Alfai. Though mindful of the fact that the term ‘ethnic group’ is highly problematic, it is used in this study to refer to collective actors, without wading into how the Gonja and Nawuri were able to constitute themselves into collective actors to fight against each other. Suffice it, however, to say that local political actors such as political leaders, chiefs, youth association executives and leaders as well as the educated elite provided the leadership for the mobilization of the Nawuri and the Gonja into collective actors. These leaders exploited the local political order, history as well as social space networks such as activities of youth associations to mobilize individuals into collective Nawuri and Gonja actors. In few cases, the authority of these ‘ethnic entrepreneurs’ was challenged by local actors who emphasized biological considerations. A Nawuri with maternal ties 25 Ibid. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 10 with the Gonja sought Gonja interests; the reverse was also true. However, these local actors influenced by biological considerations rarely constituted themselves into competing factions. The processes, mode and nature of Nawuri and Gonja as collective actors were determined by the dynamics and nuances of the manifestation of ethnic identity in Alfai. Ethnic identity in Alfai was viewed in terms of ascribed membership of the Nawuri and the Gonja to cultural, historical and religious traditions. The encounter between the Nawuri and the Gonja in Alfai in the pre-colonial times was one of allies. In the colonial and post-colonial times, it changed into an encounter between the autochthones (first- comers) and immigrants (late-comers). Colonialism also created conditions for the manifestations of ethnic identities of the Nawuri and Gonja in Alfai. It made the Gonja the overlords of Alfai, and thus converted the hitherto generally cooperative relations between the Nawuri and the Gonja into one of the “ruled” and the “ruler”. Colonialism created an opportunity for the Gonja to subjugate the Nawuri and to claim allodial rights to Alfai lands. The result was that between 1932 and 1991, the identity of the Nawuri and the Gonja was seen as one of subjects fighting for their autonomy and allodial rights, on one hand, and overlords fighting to hold to their overlordship and supposed allodial rights to Alfai lands on the other. Apart from the ruled-ruler categorization, colonialism ascribed other forms of identity to the Nawuri and the Gonja. Early colonial education policy provided educational opportunities to the children of the Gonja chiefly family to the detriment of those of the Nawuri. As a result, an educated and enlightened Gonja family was established in Alfai in the 1930s and 1940s. Few Nawuri men such as S.G. Friko, J.K. Mbimadong and Yaw Atorsah – the first Nawuri people to be educated – gained University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 11 opportunities to be educated in the late 1940s and early 1950s. By the 1970s, however, education had become pronounced among the Nawuri and the Gonja in Alfai. Nonetheless, the differences in the periods of education opportunities offered to the Nawuri and the Gonja created some notions and stereotypes. The categories “enlightened” and ‘unenlightened” or “civilized” and “uncivilized” came to be used as descriptions of the ethnic identities of the Gonja and the Nawuri, respectively. Irrespective of the level of education of the Nawuri, he was still seen as unenlightened or uncivilized in the eyes of the Gonja. On the other hand, an uneducated Gonja was seen by the Gonja community as enlightened and civilized by virtue of his membership of the ethnic group. As the Nawuri attempted to “exorcise the ghost” of these stereotypes and stigmatizations, street fights often occurred between the youths of the two ethnic groups, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. To a lesser extent, social activities in Alfai were ethnicized. In the late 1980s, two football clubs in Alfai, Iron Breakers and Soccer Millionaires Football Clubs, gained prominence and qualification to the National Division One League (hitherto known as National Division Two League). The financiers, founders and supporters of Iron Breakers Football Club were Gonja in ethnic identity. On the other hand, though Soccer Millionaires Football Club was founded and financed by the Kotokoli, it drew its support largely from the Kotokoli and the Nawuri. With Gonja and Nawuri support divided between the two clubs, the activities of the clubs soon became ethnicized and turned into a Nawuri-Gonja affair. Frequent disturbances, usually under the guise of football rivalry, broke out between Nawuri and Gonja youths, creating a tense atmosphere in Alfai. So tensed was the atmosphere that it became increasingly evident that the rivalry between Nawuri and Gonja supporters of the two clubs could degenerate into war. In 1990, the Northern Regional Branch of the Ghana Football Association, then chaired by Alhaji University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 12 M.N.D. Jawula, a Gonja, was compelled to ban the two football clubs for security reasons. As a result, the two football clubs were dissolved, Nawuri-Gonja rivalry over football matters was minimized, and tension in Alfai dwindled. As a corollary to the above, ethnic identity in Alfai also crept into religious matters. Most of the Gonja were Muslims, but the Nawuri were largely Christians, mostly Catholics in denomination. The result was that matters of dispute between Muslims and Catholics in Alfai largely took ethnic dimensions. It is in this context that one understands the reason why the Nawuri opposed the Gonja from selling a parcel of land hitherto acquired by the Kpandai Roman Catholic Church to some fitter-mechanics. In the politics of Alfai between 1932 and 1991, ethnic identity was a tool for the mobilization of resources to gain advantage in situations of competition and conflict between the Nawuri and the Gonja. At different points, Nawuri-Gonja relations were cooperative, competitive and conflictual. There were familial and friendly relations as well as economic partnerships between some Nawuri and Gonja kinsmen. In times of skirmishes, misunderstandings and communal violence, the familial, friendly and economic partnership networks between members of the two ethnic groups melted away. In its ruins, emerged a hostile attitude, hatred and the passion to mobilize ethnic strength and all other resources to attack each other. Hence a Nawuri man married to a Gonja would fraternize with his Nawuri kinsmen to attack the Gonja, including his in-laws; the vice versa was also the case. 1.2.2 Conceptualizing Conflict The term ‘conflict’ has been conceptualized in different ways. Largely, the concepts have been constructed within the frameworks of philosophy, sociology and political University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 13 science. Invariably, the concept ‘conflict’ has been used variously to explain radical changes in different segments or structures of a society. 26 The term ‘conflict’ as used in this study simplydenotesa state of dispute and antagonism between the Nawuri and the Gonja in Alfai over a broad layer of issues. It is also used in reference to skirmishes, physical confrontations and war between the two ethnic groups. In Alfai, the period between 1932 and 1990 was generally one of antagonisms, disputes and skirmishes between the Nawuri and the Gonja. The only notable skirmishes between the two ethnic groups in this period occurred in 1935 and 1952. In this study, the term ‘conflict’ is strictly used to refer to Nawuri-Gonja antagonisms, disputes and skirmishes in the period between 1932 and 1990. On the other hand, the terms ‘conflict’ and ‘war’ are used inter-changeably to refer to the communal violence between the Nawuri and the Gonja and the resolution attempts between 1991 and 1996. 1.2.3 Understanding the concept of ‘Allodial rights’ in land The term “allodial rights” is used in this study to denote the ownership rights that a group of people have in land(s). It is difficult to discuss the issue of allodial rights without making reference to legal discourse on the topic. In Ghanaian customary land law, the title of allodial rights “normally belongs to the community with the highest degree of occupation of the land,” though there could be an extinction of allodial rights in land arising out of abandonment, conquest, outright and compulsory acquisition by the 26 O.J. Bartos and P. Wehr, Using Conflict Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 12. For example, scholars who conceptualize conflict from the philosophical Hegelian perspective, see it as an inherent means of social order and development and that society is made up of forces, whose actions produce counter-forces.Other scholars conceptualize conflict in three broad sociological perspectives. On the one hand, conflict is conceptualized in the Marxist perspective, which categorizes conflict as a class struggle between the proletariat and capitalists. On the other hand, some scholars give it an Emile Durkheim-conceptualization (known as the functionalist approach). They see society as a functioning organism and that every aspect of the custom and practices of a people or society are important for a stable, cohesive society. To the functionalist, the chief factor for social conflicts is crime. In a third sociological perspective, conflict, as conceptualized by Alan Sear (a Canadian sociologist), is caused by social inequalities. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 14 state. 27 Customary land law in Ghana determines allodial rights in land using a number of variables such as occupation, sale, lease, gift, conquest, abandonment. According to Woodman, though Ghanaian courts regard all land as having been owned for at least two and a half centuries, it is not clear that all land has been occupied throughout that time. It is necessary therefore to find a basis, other than occupation or settlement, of legitimate claims to the allodial title to land which has been unoccupied at some point during that period. 28 Mindful of the dynamics of allodial rights in land, this study seeks to construct the notion of allodial rights in Alfai from the historical point of view, using as determinants, variables such as autochthony or first-settler rights, overlorship, and conquest to interrogate the question of allodial rights to land in Alfai in the pre-colonial period. In the colonial and post colonial periods, evidence was gleaned from records, especially reports and correspondences, to examine whether allodial rights in Alfai lands resided in the autochthonous Nawuri or the immigrant Gonja. The problematic issue of allodial rights in Alfai has been the fulcrum around which all other issues relating to Nawuri-Gonja relations from the 1930s to 1991 revolved. Thus the question of who owns Alfai, whether the autochthonous Nawuri or the immigrant Gonja, was the fundamental cause of all the various outbreaks of violence between the Nawuri and the Gonja between 1932 and 1991. In other words, beneath the wrangle between the Nawuri and the Gonja over local government arrangements in Alfai, social and economic issues from the 1930s to 1991 was the question of allodial rights to Alfai land. In Alfai, as is the case of other Ghanaian societies, the modes of measuring allodial rights are embedded in the historical traditions of the people. In Alfai, claims to 27 Gordon R. Woodman, Customary Land Law in the Ghanaian Courts (1994), 55-58. 28 Ibid., 55. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 15 allodial rights in land were dynamic as notions of allodial rights changed from the pre- colonial to the colonial times. By right of autochthony and autonomy, allodial rights in Alfai in the pre-colonial period resided in the Nawuri. In the colonial period, however, the notions of overlordship, conquest and abandonment became the basis of measuring allodial rights in land in Alfai. These notions challenged established traditions and made it possible for the Gonja to claim allodial rights in land. It was these dynamics in the notions of allodial rights in land which led to the conflicting claims of allodial land rights in Alfai by the Nawuri and the Gonja in the colonial and the post-colonial times, eventually leading to the outbreak of war between them in 1991. 1.3 Statement of Problem The causes of ethnic conflicts in Northern Ghana are varied. They range from politics of succession to allodial rights and issues of identity. The roots of the Nawuri- Gonja conflict are traced to colonial policy of subordination. In 1913 the Germans issued a warrant to Kanankulaiwura Mahama Karatu, the Gonja head chief in Alfai then, making him the overlord of Alfai for the sake of political expediency. This began Gonja rule over the Nawuri, which was made irreversible when the British colonial authorities subsumed Alfai into the Gonja kingdom in 1932 following the introduction of indirect rule in the Northern Territories. The policy of indirect rule led to a categorization of societies in Northern Ghana into centralized and non-centralized societies. 29 With the 29 A S H. Pul, “Exclusion, Association and Violence: Trends and Triggers of Ethnic Conflict in Northern Ghana,” Duquesne University: unpublished M. A. Dissertation, 2003) 23. The designation “non- centralized” was used to refer to societies that did not recognize a single individual as a repository of political authority. In these societies, the roles and responsibilities of the office of chief were vested in the most senior member in the priestly clan, often the tendana (clan head). Societies classified by the colonial authorities as non-centralized included those of the Nawuri, Nchumuru, Mo, Vagla, Konkomba, Frafra, B’Moba, Komba, Kusasi, Tamplusi, Builsa, Sissala, and Chakosi. On the other hand, the term “centralized states” was used to describe states that had a single individual as the centre of political power. Societies considered centralized included Nanum, Dagbon, Gonja, Wala and Mamprugu states. The classification cannot be accepted as wholly true as available evidence pointed to the existence of chiefly offices, including those of paramount chiefs, among many of the so-called non-centralized states. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 16 categorization, the so-called smaller and non-centralized societies were amalgamated with the centralized ones. The result was that: numerous and unassimilated groups such as the Nawuri, Nchumuru, Mo and Vagla, were grouped under the Gonja chiefs; large numbers of Konkomba and Chakosi were made subject to the Dagomba kingdom; the Frafra and B’Moba to the paramount chief of Mamprusi; and the Dagarti and Sisala in the Wala District to the Wala chiefs. In this way the British hoped to rationalize existing social and political structures for administrative purpose. 30 The ruler-ruled political encounters between the Gonja and the Nawuri in Alfai created by the British colonial authorities provided opportunities for the Gonja to interfere and exercise rights in land under the guise of overlordship much to the disgust of the Nawuri. This sowed the seeds of the conflicting claims by the Nawuri and the Gonja over allodial rights in Alfai in the colonial and post-colonial times. 1.4 Research Objectives and Questions In broad terms, the objectives of this study are to examine the causes of the Nawuri- Gonja conflict to establish the extent to which colonialism created new notions of jurisdiction and claims to land in Alfai; to establish the encounters between the Nawuri and the Gonja from the pre-colonial to the post-colonial times; to interrogate Nawuri- Gonja encounters over allodial rights in land; and to discuss the extent to which the conflicting claims over allodial land rights in Alfai served as a nexus connecting the multiplicity of layers of issues that underlay the Nawuri-Gonja conflict. The study was not based on a hypothesis; it was built around a number of research questions which interrogated Nawuri-Gonja political relations, colonial policy, allodial 30 Paul André Ladouceur, Chiefs and Politicians: the Politics of Regionalism in Northern Ghana (London: Longman, 1979), 43. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 17 rights, causes, conduct and resolution of the Nawuri-Gonja conflict. Some of the key research questions are: what was the nature of the relations between the Nawuri and Gonja in the pre-colonial period?What evidence is there to point to autochthonous rights in Alfai in the pre-colonial period?What were the earliest political decisions taken by the German and British colonial Administration in Alfai and how did they affect claims to allodial ownership in the area?What specific colonial policies altered the power relations between the Nawuri and the Gonja and how did the former react to such policies?What factors caused the Nawuri-Gonja conflict?To what extent did claims to allodial rights to Alfai land influence the political, social and economic dimensions of the Nawuri-Gonja conflict?To what extent did the political activism of the Youth Associations of the two ethnic groups reflect the question of allodial rights?What attempts were made to resolve the layers of issues of dispute between the Nawuri and the Gonja and how successful were they?What strategies were adopted for the prosecution of the Nawuri-Gonja War of 1991 and 1992, and what were its effects? 1.5 Historiographical Context In many African states, communal violence and civil strife have posed a challenge to peace over the past four decades or so. It has claimed thousands of human lives and led to “flagrant abuses of fundamental human rights and freedoms, and to crime, violence, apathy and environmental irresponsibility.” 31 War or violent conflict, which is generally viewed as the extreme manifestation of human struggles, has attracted the attention of scholars. 31 J. Cocodia, “Exhuming Trends in Ethnic Conflict and Cooperation in Africa: Some Selected States” in African Journal on Conflict Resolution (2008, volume 8, number 3), 910-930. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 18 Vast literature on war, stretching back to the ancient times, exists. 32 The task of attempting a general review of the vast literature on war or violent conflict in this study is arduous, if not impossible. As such this study focuses on the more recent material central to debates about post-Cold War conflicts in Africa. Of the plethora of conflict theories, a common line runs through five of them which can be conveniently categorized into the nation-state, ‘poverty’, ‘the new barbarism’, ‘the greed not grievance’, and the ethnography debates or theories, though there are some degrees of differences. Most of these theories are rooted deeply in European thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 33 One of the most popular and enduring theories of the sources of conflicts in Africa is the nation-building theory. This theory sees conflicts in Africa as an intrinsic phenomenon of the multi-ethnic nature of African states. It emphasizes that the multi- ethnic African state is inherently conflictual and that stability necessarily requires that the ingrained “tribalism” be transcended through modernization. The thrust of this theory is that conflict is an inherent phenomenon of the multi-ethnic nature of African states as it creates competition of cultures and clash of identity. The theory emphasizes that ethnic consciousness emerges at the boundary between groups, rather than being intrinsic to the group itself, and that the multiplicity of ethnic groups in African states created conditions for ethnic consciousness. 34 The result is that ethnicity or cultural difference becomes a means of mobilizing resources for violent conflict. The proponents further argue that as African states were modernized they adopted a Western form of government. However, 32 Paul Richards, “New War” in Paul Richards ed., No Peace No War: An Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts (Athens and Oxford: Ohio University Press and James Currey, 2005), 1-21. Much of the literature on war falls into two broad categories – prosecution or defense mechanisms against war and what can be termed as ‘war as metric’. According to Richards, “the purpose of the first kind of literature is to train soldiers or advise practitioners of statecraft. ‘War as metric’, in contrast, uses violent conflict as a yardstick for assessing or promoting other concerns.” 33 Paul Richards, op.cit., 1-21. 34 Ibid. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 19 they failed to transform the disparate ethnic groups into an integrated and consolidated polity; they failed to divest themselves of all the nuances of ethnicity or ‘tribalism’; and that due to the difficulty of national integration, the need arose for an authoritarian and coercive power to pre-empt conflicts. Unfortunately, African states’ adoption of democracy as a form of government increased ethnic conflicts on the continent. This has denied the state unfettered use of its coercive power to freeze inter-ethnic conflicts as was the case in hegemonic (one-party states) or military regimes. Some of the proponents of this theory are Cohen, Cocodia and Rothchild. 35 There is no denying the fact that the pluralism of ethnic groups in present-day Northern Region serves as a potential source of ethnic conflicts. However, the theory fails to explain why conflicts erupt in non-democratic regimes in Africa, and therefore cannot be used to explain the Nawuri-Gonja conflict, which occurred in 1991 when Ghana was under a military regime. The surge of ethnic conflicts in Africa at the end of the twentieth century has led to the evolution of new schools of thought by social scientists. One of such theories was the ‘new barbarism’ theory. There are two approaches to this theory – the ‘instincts’ approach and the imperial and/or Super-Power approach. The ‘instincts’ approach explains that Africa was in a state of flux and turmoil before the imposition of colonial rule in the 1880s. The proponents of this theory argue that the ethnic groups in Africa had age-long hatred for one another. This was evidenced by the numerous inter-ethnic wars such as the Asante-Fanti Wars, Asante-Akyem Wars, and Dagomba-Gonja Wars. Colonialism put a lid on the ‘barbaric instincts’ of Africans, and thus prevented the 35 For details see: A. Cohen, Custom and Politics in Urban Africa: a Study of Hausa Migrants in Yoruba Towns. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969); J. Cocodia, “Exhuming Trends in Ethnic Conflict and Cooperation in Africa: Some Selected States.” In African Journal on Conflict Resolution, (2008, volume 8, number 3), 910-930; Rothchild in Paul Nkwi, “A Network for Comparative Studies, Monitoring and Evaluation of Ethnic Conflicts and Social Transformation in Africa” in Ethno-net Africa (2001). As quoted in Cocodia, op.cit. Also available at www.unesco.org; A. Kuper, Culture: the Anthropologists’ Account (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh http://www.unesco.org/ 20 eruption of conflicts on the continent. As soon as colonialism ended, Africans descended into barbarism, maiming and killing each other. The proponents further argue that the ethnic animosities explain why the colonial authorities failed to melt away ethnic consciousness in the nation-states created. The imperial and the Super-Power approach blameall ethnic conflicts in post-colonial Africa on the colonial enterprise and or the Cold War. The proponents argue that the so-called surge of the ‘new barbarism’ in Africa is a consequence of colonialism, which created ethnic categories and consciousness. It sees conflicts on the African continent as ‘the unfinished business from the colonial era, and ties the causes of ethnic conflicts in Africa to the colonial policy that forcibly agglomerated people of diverse ethnic backgrounds into one nation, which “produced essentialized ethnicities from what were once fluid political groupings,” 36 and the “exploitation of the colonists, which compounded already strained inter-ethnic relations.” 37 As Jennifer Cole puts it: soon after France colonized Madagascar in 1895, General Governor Joseph Gallieni imposed a modified form of indirect rule called la polirique de races, dividing the peoples of Madagascar into different groups according to their customs so as to facilitate the colonial administration. The result of this division and codification, which produced essentialized ethnicities from what were once fluid political groupings, endures today. 38 In other cases, the proponents of this theory impute conflicts in Africa to the Cold War. They view conflicts on the continent as un-extinguished bushfires from the Cold War. According to them, until the collapse of the Cold War in 1989, war in world history was generally seen by many scholars as a monopolized phenomenon by the major powers; that every conflict was “in some way shaped by the ideological struggle between East and West, [and that] the chief protagonists – the United States and the Soviet Union 36 Jennifer Cole, Forget Colonialism? Sacrifice and the Art of Memory in Madagascar (London: University of California Press, 2001), 6. 37 Cocodia, op.cit., 910-930. 38 Jennifer Cole, op.cit., 36. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 21 – fought wars by proxy in Africa, Southeast Asia and Central America.” 39 The thrust of this argument is that the “Super-Power balance of nuclear terror kept the lid on many local conflicts” 40 , but once the Cold War competition ended, “endemic hostilities reasserted themselves.” 41 It holds that “the upsurge of ethnic conflicts in Africa in the 1980s and 1990s was a reaction to events in Eastern Europe. The collapse of the old order in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s had a tremendous impact on the fragile nation states of Africa.” 42 It further holds that globalization led to the ‘westernization’ of the world and that this global culture cannot be produced without difficulty and conflict. 43 In short, conflicts in Africa are caused by the age-long hatred of ethnic groups for one another. The hatred could be the product of pre-colonial wars of conquest and annexation for the establishment, maintenance and expansion of states and kingdoms or could be a colonial creation born out of colonial policies. Some scholars of the ‘new barbarism theory are Kaplan, van Creveld, Jennifer Cole, Bailey,Scholte, Waters, Nnoli, Suberu, A. Avugma, Attali, Barber and Lerche. 44 This study is not situated within this theory because the Nawuri-Gonja conflict 39 Paul Richards, op.cit., 1-21. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 Cocodia, op.cit., 910-930. 43 P.O. Sijuwade, “Globalization and Cultural Conflict in Developing Countries: The South African Example,” in Anthropologist 8(2) (Kamla-Raj publisher, 2006), 125-137. 44 The works of the proponents of this school of thought as quoted in Cocodia, J., op.cit., are: G.A. Bailey, “Rebirth of the Non-Western World,” Anthropology Newsletter 35 (9), 1994; Okwudiba Nnoli, Ethnic Conflicts in Africa, Nottingham, Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), 1998; Rotimi T. Suberu, Ethnic Minority Conflicts and Governance in Nigeria, (Lagos: Spectrum Books Lttique, 2003); Adongo Avugma, “Tribalism, Colonialism and Capitalism”, in The Socialist Standard. Quoted in Cocodia, op.cit., 910-930. Also available at www.feedback@worldsocialism.org; A. Tindwell, and C. Lerche “Globalization and Conflict Resolution”, in International Journal of Peace Studies, Volume 9, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2004. The rest are: Jacques Attali, Millenium: Winners and Losers in the Coming World Order, New York, Times Books, 1991; Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Times Books, 1995); Lerche and O. Charles, “The Conflicts of Globalization,” in International Journal of Peace Studies, 3 (1), 1998, 47-66. Jan Art Scholte, "The Globalization of World Politics," in John Baylis and Steve; Waters, Malcolm eds., Globalization, London, Routledge, 1995. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh http://www.feedback@worldsocialism.org/ 22 cannot be traced to any pre-colonial antagonistic relations between the Nawuri and the Gonja. The study traces the roots of the conflict to the operations of the colonial system, but identifies the issue of allodial rights to be more pivotal and central to the conflict. Other scholars have also identified a link between poverty and conflict. There are two perspectives on this theory. One perspective holds that poverty and deprivation were often the unintended consequences of civil wars on the African continent, and that conflicts generally threaten and destroy livelihoods, infrastructures and resources in Africa. Another variant perspective blames conflicts in Africa on poverty. It argues that poverty, the uneven distribution of resources and economic opportunities in Africa, lack of human needs and opportunities create competitions and conflicts on the African continent. Some proponents of this theory are Homer-Dixon, Burton, Nathan, Gurr, and Sandbrook. 45 There is no gainsaying that conflicts result in the destruction of properties of all kind, which can cause poverty and deprivation. However, it is difficult to use this theory to explain conflicts in Northern Ghana. Its adoption involves constructing a macro- history of poverty as the source of conflicts in Northern Ghana and other regions of the country considered poor, a task which is onerous and arduous, if not impossible. 45 T.F. Homer-Dixon, “On the Threshold: Environmental Changes as Causes of Acute Conflict.” International Security 16(21), 1991, 76-116; “Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict: Evidence from Cases”, in International Security 19 (1), 1994, 5-40; Environment, Scarcity and Violence (Princeton: NJ and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 1999); J. Burton, ‘Violence Experienced: The Source of Conflict Violence and Crime and Their Prevention’ (New York: Manchester University Press, 1997); L. Nathan, Crisis, Resolution and Conflict Management in Africa (Cape Town: Centre for Conflict Resolution, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 2003); R. Sandbrook, The Politics of Basic Needs, (Heinemann: London, 1982); T. Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton, 1970). As quoted in Brian-Vincent IKEJIAKU “The Relationship between Poverty, Conflict and Development” in Journal of Sustainable Development, Vol. 2, No. 1, March 2009, 15-28; Paul Richards, “New War”, in Paul Richards ed., No Peace No War: Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts (Athens/Oxford: Ohio University Press/James Currey, 2005), 1-8. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 23 The ‘greed, not grievance’ theory is yet another theory of great influence in the debates about post-Cold War conflicts in Africa. The theory emphasizes that “internal wars are explained as much by economic considerations as by inter-group hatreds.” 46 The thrust of this argument is that the desire by some unscrupulous and greedy persons to gain unfettered control over the exploitation of some natural resources often leads to conflicts in Africa. In such situations, “belligerents gravitate towards resources to fight.” 47 The proponents argue that in the cases that conflicts erupt as a result of the attempt to gain control over the exploitation of minerals, greed but not grievance, is the underlying factor. This was particularly the case in Angola, Congo and Sierra Leone where conflicts erupted as result of the greed of individuals and groups to gain control of what has been described as ‘conflict diamonds.’ The proponents of this school are Berdal, Keen, and Malone. 48 Scholarly work on the psychoanalysis of greed as a source of conflicts in Northern Ghana hardly exists. Besides, the only natural resource pivotal to the Nawuri- Gonja conflict is land, but it is difficult to assign any psychological values to Nawuri and Gonja attempts to control it. The fifth theory is the ethnographic approach to the study of the sources of conflicts. The theory views conflicts as a “long-term struggle organized for political ends, commonly but not always using violence. Neither the means nor the ends can be understood without reference to a specific social context.” 49 The proponents of this theory do not view war as a product of “mindless response to stimuli such as population 46 Paul Richards, op.cit., 9. 47 Ibid., 4. 48 M. Berdal, and D. Keen, Violence and Economic Agendas in Civil Wars: Some Policy Implications. Millennium Journal of International Studies 26 (3), 1997, 795-815; M. Berdal, and D. Malone eds., Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Boulder Co., Lymne Rienner, 2000). 49 Paul Richards, op.cit., 4. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 24 pressure or cultural competition.” 50 They argue that conflicts should be seen in terms of a continuum, which involves long periods of uneasy peace punctuated by occasional eruptions of violence. Some of the proponents are Paul Richards, Mats Utas, Sten Hagberg, Sverker Finnström, and Bernhard Helander. 51 This study adopted the ethnographic approach to the explanation of conflicts in Africa. It presented the dispute over allodial rights to Alfai land as a continuous struggle between the Nawuri and the Gonja which involved long periods of uneasy peace punctuated by occasional eruption of violence which reached a climax in 1991 when war broke out. Intellectual discourses on conflicts in Northern Ghana, whether inter-ethnic or intra-ethnic, have more or less pointed accusing fingers at the colonial enterprise. Historiography on conflicts in Northern Ghana has discussed the causes of conflicts from the context of chieftaincy dispute, land rights, competition for authority and representations both on local and national government bodies. Irrespective of the multiplicity of causes, the approach to discourse on conflicts in Northern Ghana can be categorized broadly into two. The first discourse or approach imputes the causes of inter- ethnic conflicts in Northern Ghana to colonialism. 50 Ibid. 51 Paul Richards, “New War.” Paul Richards ed., No Peace NoWar: An Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts (Athens and Oxford: Ohio University Press and James Curry, 2005), 1-21; S. Hagberg, “Dealing with Dilemmas: Violent Farmer-Pastoralist Conflicts in Burkina Faso” in Paul Richards ed., No Peace NoWar: An Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts (Athens and Oxford: Ohio University Press and James Curry, 2005), 40-56; S. Finnström, “For God and My Life: War and Cosmology in Northern Uganda,” Paul Richards ed., No Peace NoWar: An Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts (Athens and Oxford: Ohio University Press and James Curry, 2005), 98-116; B. Helander, “Who Needs a State? Civilian, Security and Social Services in North-East Somalia” in Paul Richards ed., No Peace NoWar: An Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts (Athens and Oxford: Ohio University Press and James Curry, 2005), 193-202. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 25 The proponents of this view included Bombade, N.J.K. Brukum, Hippolyt Pul and Peter Skalnik. 52 The thrust of their argument is one or a combination of the following points: that the colonial enterprise imposed notions of state and state power on Northern Ghana without taking into account the conceptual differences in outlook between centralized and non-centralized societies; that colonialism, with its policy of indirect rule, was the major cause of inter-ethnic conflicts in Northern Ghana because it created lots of antagonisms, grievances and festering relations between ethnic groups; and that in some instances state actors themselves have fomented or condoned war. The second discourse or approach is led by scholars such as Ladouceur, Carola Lentz, Dzodzi Tsikata and Wayo Seini, Julia Jonson and Benjamin Talton. 53 This school of thought establishes the causes of conflicts in Northern Ghana beyond the colonial enterprise. The proponents of this thought acknowledge the role colonialism played in 52 Emmanuel Bombande, “Conflicts, Civil Society Organisation and Community Peace Building in Northern Ghana’’ in Steve Tonah ed., Ethnicity, Conflicts and Consensus in Northern Ghana (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2007), 196-228; Peter Skalnik, “Questioning the Concept of the State in Indigenous Africa” in Social Dynamics, 9 (2), 11-28; Peter Skalnik, “On the Inequality of the Concept of the ‘Traditional State’” in Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law, Nos. 25 & 26, 1983; Peter Skalnik, “Outwitting Ghana: Pluralism of Political Culture in Nanum” in Peter Skalnik ed., Outwitting the State (New Brunswick, 1989), 145-168; N.J.K. Brukum, “Chieftaincy and Ethnic Conflicts in Northern Region of Ghana, 1980-2002” in Steve Tonah ed., Ethnicity, Conflicts and Consensus in Ghana (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2007), 98-115; N.J.K. Brukum, The Guinea-Fowl, Mango and Pito Wars: Episodes in the History of Northern Ghana, 1980-1991 (Accra: Ghana Universities Press, 2001); N.J.K. Brukum, “Ethnic Conflicts in Northern Ghana: An Appraisal” in Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, New Series, Nos. 4 & 5, 2000-2001, 131-147; N.J.K. Brukum, “Chiefs, Colonial Policy and Politics in Northern Ghana, 1897-1956” in Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, New Series, No. 3, 1999, 101-122; N.J.K. Brukum, “Ethnic Conflict in Northern Region of Ghana. A Study of the Gonja District, 1980-1994” in M. Oquaye ed., Democracy, Politics and Conflict Resolution in Contemporary Ghana (Accra:Gold-Type Publications Ltd., 1995), 138-153; A.S.P. Hippolyt, “Exclusion, Association and Violence: Trends and Triggers of Ethnic Conflicts in Northern Ghana”(Duquesne University: unpublished M. A Dissertation, 2003). 53 P.A. Ladouceur, Chiefs and Politicians: The Politics of Regionalism in Northern Ghana (London: Longman, 1979); Carola Lentz, Ethnicity and The Making of History in Northern Ghana (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2007); D. Tsikata, D. and Wayo Seini, op.cit. Julia Jonson, “The Overwhelming Minority: Traditional Leadership and Ethnic Conflict in Ghana’s Northern Region” (Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE) Working Paper No. 30, 2007); Benjamin Talton, Politics of Social Change in Ghana: The Konkomba Struggle for Political Equality (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 26 the outbreak of ethnic conflicts in Northern Ghana, but consider the social and economic factors as preponderant. They argue that education, modernization, questions of allodial rights, the activities of ethnic youth associations fostered consciousness of identity, ethnicity and inequalities in Northern Ghana; and that an explanation of ethnic conflicts in northern Ghana must necessarily take account of the role of ethnicity, identity and inequality. This thesis builds on the argument of the second discourse or approach. It traces the root causes of the Nawuri-Gonja conflict to the colonial policy of amalgamation, and views the conflict as a product of the long period of antagonism between the Nawuri and the Gonja. The thesis establishes the role that colonialism played in the outbreak of the Nawuri-Gonja conflict, but argues that the conflict was an illustration of the extent to which conflicting claims to allodialrights impinged on political, social and economic debate in Alfai in the colonial and post-colonial periods. In other words, the issue of allodial rights served as a nexus connecting the multiplicity of issues that underlay the Nawuri-Gonja conflict. 1.6 Literature Review A study of the Nawuri-Gonja conflict must necessarily take into account literatures on Nawuri, Gonja, colonial rule, land tenure and conflicts in Northern Ghana. A substantial amount of literature exists on Gonja history and colonial rule in Northern Ghana. The earliest known references to Gonja in written literature are contained in the works of Arab writers. The Chronicles from Gonja: A Tradition of West African Muslim Historiography contains an array of texts translated, with commentaries, by Ivor Wilks, University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 27 Nehemia Levtzion, Bruce and Haight. 54 These texts provide a first-hand account of the foundation of Gonja, its economic and social systems. The accounts are largely narrative and do not provide any argument of Nawuri-Gonja encounters. Neither do they provide any detail discussion of Nawuri-Gonja relations in pre-colonial, colonial and post- colonial times. Nonetheless, the texts are significant to this study as they give anecdotal history of the relations between the two ethnic groups. J.A. Braimah and J.R. Goody examine the Kpembe Civil War of 1892-93, and analyze the causes, conduct and effects of the civil war. 55 The authors also discuss the effects of the policies of Kanankulaiwura Mahama Karatu (later Kpembewura Jawula) on the Nawuri and the Nchumuru. 56 The work of Braimah and Goody was limited to the Kpembe Civil War, and argues that the conflict was caused by internal wrangles over the Kpembewura Skin among the three eligible clans of Lepo, Singbung and Kanyase. Their work has little detail on Gonja policy towards the Nawuri, but gives glimpses into Nawuri-Gonja political alliance in the pre-colonial period as it contained few passages of Nawuri support to the Lepo Gonja in the civil war. 57 However, their work is useful to this study because it provides glimpses into Gonja rule over the Nawuri, which can provide a basis for a more exhaustive enquiry. In “The Over-Kingdom of Gonja”, Jack Goody provides a detailed account of nineteenth-century Gonja. He discusses the foundation of Gonja, its economic and social 54 Ivor Wilks, Nehemia Levtzion and Bruce M. Haight, Chronicles from Gonja: A Tradition of West African Muslim Historiography (Cambridge: CUP, 1996). 55 J.A. Braimah and J.R. Goody, Salaga: The Struggle for Power (London: Longman, 1967). 56 Kanankulaiwura is the title of the Gonja head chief in Alfai. The title is derived from the Nawuri words “Kanan”, which means meat, “Kule” which means chunk, and “wura” which means ‘lord’ or ‘master’. Hence “Kanankulaiwura” in Nawuri means the ‘chief or master of chunks of meat.’ It was also possible that the title Kanankulaiwura was derived from Nawuri words Kanankulai (another name of the Nawuri area), which literally means ‘land of abundance of meat’, and wura, which means ‘master’, ‘lord or ‘chief’. Hence Kanankulaiwura means the master, lord or chief of Kanankulai. For the origin of the office of the Kanankulaiwura, see chapter two of this study. 57 The Gonja in Alfai prior to colonial rule were members of the Lepo clan from Kpembe. This probably explains why the Nawuri supported the Lepo clan in the Kpembe civil war. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 28 systems, and the historical framework of outside contacts. 58 His work does not give much else beyond the internal and external relations of nineteenth-century Gonja. It hardly provides any clue to the relations between the Gonja and the Nawuri in the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, Goody’s work provides useful information about the foundation of Gonja, which is helpful to this study. While the body of literature on Gonja is appreciably substantial, there is a paucity of literature on Nawuri history. The few written works on Nawuri history include the works of Ampene, Braimah, Cardinall, Tamakloe, Wilks, Levtzion, Haight, Ward, Jones and Mathewson. These works provide two schools of thought on Nawuri history. On the one hand is the school of thought led by Braimah, Cardinall, Tamakloe, Wilks, Levtzion and Haight. 59 This school makes Nawuri subordinate to Gonja and impliedly upholds the latter’s allodial claims in Alfai land. The thrust of their arguments is that Nawuri history is an appendage to that of Gonja; and that the Gonja were the historical overlords of the Nawuri and owners of Alfai. In contrast to this view is that of a second school of thought consisting of Ampene, Jones, Ward and Mathewson. 60 The main arguments of this second school of thought are that the Nawuri were the indigenes of Alfai; that there was no common tradition of origin that linked the Nawuri to the Gonja; that it was with the Nawuri and other indigenous Guan groups that the Gonja from Mandeland intermingled to acquire 58 Jack Goody, “The Over-Kingdom of Gonja” in Daryll Forde and P.M. Kaberry eds., West African Kiongdoms in the Nineteenth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), 179-205. 59 J.A. Braimah, The Two Isanwurfos (London: Longman, 1967); A.W. Cardinal, Tales in Togoland (London: Oxford University Press, 1931); E.F. Tamakloe, A Brief History of the Dagbamba People (Accra: Government Printer, 1931); Ivor Wilks, Levtzion and Haight, Chronicles from Gonja: A Tradition of West African Muslim Historiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 60 Kwame Ampene, History of the Guan-Speaking Peoples of Ghana (Boso: Laterian House, 2003); D.H. Jones, “Jakpa and the Foundation of Gonja” in Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, 1962, Vol. VI, 1-28.; W.E.F. Ward, A History of Ghana (London: George Allen and Urwin Limited, 1966); R.D. Mathewson, “Kitare: A Preliminary Note” in Archaeological Sites in Ghana (Legon: University Press, 1965). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 29 their Guan dialect; and that the Nawuri communally settled at Kitare before moving out to found other settlements in Alfai. These viewpoints provide a basis for interrogating the respective claims of the Nawuri and the Gonja to allodial rights in Alfai as well as their political relations in the pre-colonial and colonial eras. On colonial rule and land tenure in Northern Ghana, there is a lot of literature with differing perspectives and viewpoints. In his book, Priests and Power: The Case of the Dente Shrine in Nineteenth-Century Ghana, Maier recounts the history of Krachi and Kete-Krachi District in the nineteenth century, and evaluates the impact of German rule on Krachi and the Kete-Krachi District in general. 61 Maier’s work made few references to Alfai in the Kete-Krachi District under German rule, which provides a basis for an exhaustive research. R.B. Bening discusses the evolution of the regional boundaries of Ghana in a work published in 1999. 62 He explains in detail the evolution of the boundaries of the Northern Territories (now Northern Ghana), and examines the impact of colonial political policies on traditional political and social structures in Northern Ghana. Bening explains the extent to which the colonial policy of administrative expediency contributed to the amalgamation of Alfai with the Gonja kingdom. His work helps this study to assess the role of colonial policies in the context of Nawuri-Gonja conflict. N.J.K. Brukum has examined political changes in Northern Ghana from 1897 to 1956. 63 He shows how colonialism established new notions of ethnic relations, awakened northern consciousness, ethnicity and elitism. Though this work does not examine 61 D.J.E. Maier, Priests and Power: The Case of the Dente Shrine in Nineteenth-Century Ghana (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983). 62 R.B. Bening, Ghana: Regional Boundaries and National Integration (Accra: Ghana Universities Press. 1999). 63 N.J.K. Brukum, “The Northern Territories of the Gold Coast under British Colonial Rule, 1897-1956: A Study in Political Change” (University of Toronto: unpublished PhD thesis, 1996). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 30 conflicts in post-colonial Northern Ghana, it provides considerable information on the operation of the colonial system. This will help this study to interrogate the extent to which the colonial system was culpable for the ethnic conflicts in modern-day Northern Ghana. The earliest work on land tenure and utilization of land in Northern Ghana was authored by R.J.K. Pogucki. 64 In his book, Gold Coast Land Tenure: A Survey of Land Tenure in Customary Law of the Protectorate of the Northern Territories, Pogucki explains how group rights in land were executed by the Tindana. He explainsthe processes which led to the ‘tribalization’ of land, establishment of allodial rights in land, rights of usufruct as well as common rights in land in the Northern Territories. His work does not contain specific conclusions about land tenure and allodial rights in Alfai; nonetheless it is significant for this study as it contains useful clues by which an interrogation of allodial rights and land tenure in Alfai in the pre-colonial period could be made. Ollennu provides a perspective by which claims to allodial rights of the Nawuri and the Gonja can be interrogated. In his book, Ollennu’s Principles of Customary Land Law in Ghana, he discusses allodial rights, utilization and distribution of land within the context of customary land law in Ghana. 65 Ollennu identifies four variables upon which allodial rights in land in Ghana are based - birthrights (first settlers), conquest, gift and lease. Though his work does not deal with land tenure in Alfai, it nonetheless contains useful knowledge on customary land law in Ghana which will be helpful to this study. Besides, it helps this study to interrogate the respective allodial claims of the Nawuri and the Gonja to Alfai based on his set of criteria. 64 R.J.H. Pogucki, Gold Coast Land Tenure: A Survey of Land Tenure in Customary Law of the Protectorate of the Northern Territories Vol. I (Accra: Gold Coast Lands Department, 1955). 65 N.A. Ollennu, Ollennu’s Principles of Customary Land Law in Ghana (Birmingham: Carl Press, 1985). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 31 Abudulai (1986) examines the legal, administrative and proprietary structures in respect of land in Dagbon. 66 He also examines the nature and the extent of rights of both chiefs and agricultural land users. His work seeks to make a distinction between rules that regulate the acquisition and use of land and those that make the distribution of power and prestige. The work was restricted to the Dagbon state, but it provides lessons about administrative and proprietary structures in respect of land upon which a study of allodial and proprietary rights in land in Alfai could be based. In his article, “Land Policy and Administration in Northern Ghana, 1898-1976,” R.B. Bening explains the nature of colonial land policy and its impact on Northern Ghana. 67 He explains how the colonial government ignored the claims of families, groups, ethnic groups and individuals to land, how the colonial government interfered in traditional system of land tenure and how it assumed general control over land. He also explains the impact of land administration based on colonial laws, and the attempts made by the people of Northern Ghana to harmonize legislation affecting land. His work provides a basis for critiquing colonial land policy in Alfai and showing the extent to which it contributed to the Nawuri-Gonja conflict. Richard Kuba and Carola Lentz see rights in land as a mark of identity. They explain that land was the pivot around which the politics of belonging in West Africa revolved, and that land was at the centre of conflicts in West Africa. 68 The work of Kuba and Lentz helps this study to interrogate the extent to which the question of the ownership of Alfai land serves as a nexus connecting the multiplicity of issues that underlay the Nawuri-Gonja conflict. 66 M.S. Abudulai, “Land Tenure among the Dagomba of Northern Ghana: Empirical Evidence” in Cambridge Anthropology. Vol., II, Issue 3, 1986, 72-103. 67 R.B. Bening, “Land Policy and Administration in Northern Ghana, 1898-1976” in Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, New Series, Vol. XVI, 2, No.1, 1995, 227-266. 68 R. Kuba, and Carola Lentz, eds., Land and the Politics of Belonging in West Africa (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 1975). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 32 Woodman discussed in detail customary land law in the Ghanaian courts. He established allodial rights and their extinction through occupation or settlement, abandonment, conquest outright compulsory acquisition of the state. 69 Woodman’s study does not make reference to land cases in Alfai determined in court under customary land law in Ghana. Nonetheless, it provides useful information to measure allodial rights in Alfai and determine the extent to which Nawuri self-exile in 1943 constituted an abandonment or renunciation of their rights in land. Over the past three decades scholars have researched on the causes and resolution of conflicts in Northern Ghana. First among them was Staniland. From the perspective of a political scientist, Staniland constructed the political history of Dagbon from 1900 to 1974. His work examines how the traditional structure of authority in Dagbon responded to the political changes ushered by colonial administration. 70 Staniland’s work limits itself to the root causes of the Ya-Na Skin dispute without attempting to identify the root causes of ethnic conflicts in Northern Ghana at large. Nor does he attempt to establish a clear linkage between colonial rule and the Ya-Na Skin dispute of 1968. Despite its limitations, Staniland’s work is useful to this study because it serves as a nexus for the understanding of the Dagbon crisis and conflicts in other parts of Northern Ghana. Paul André Ladouceur’s work, Chiefs and Politicians: The Politics of Regionalism in Northern Ghana, focused on the colonial enterprise, its policies and national politics in Northern Ghana. 71 It focuses on the general, historical factors and antecedents to regionalism in Northern Ghana. By and large, Ladouceur’s work examined the course of political and economic evolution of Northern Ghana in response 69 Woodman, op.cit., 51-58. 70 M. Staniland, The Lions of Dagbon: Political Change in Northern Ghana (London: Cambridge University Press, 1975). 71 Ladouceur, op.cit. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 33 to both external and internal factors, and the relation between the region and the rest of Ghana. Ladouceur identifies the colonial policy of amalgamation, which rationalized existing pre-colonial social and political structures for administrative purposes as partly responsible for conflicts in modern-day Northern Ghana. He also explains how Nkrumah’s political policies undermined inter-ethnic harmony. Ladouceur’s contextualization of the causes of conflicts in Northern Ghana within the framework of the colonial enterprise is significant for this study. It serves as a foundation for this study which seeks to discover the role colonial rule played in the outbreak of ethnic conflicts in Northern Ghana. In a number of articles, Brukum examined the pre-colonial power relations between chiefs and their subjects as well as the nature of inter-state relations. He traced the imposition of colonial rule and explained how its policies made inter-ethnic wars in Northern Ghana a possibility. Brukum also discussed the immediate causes of some of the conflicts in Northern Ghana. 72 Beyond colonial policy and the immediate causes of conflicts, Brukum gives little information about the conduct of wars, conflicts management and effects. Nonetheless, his works are useful to this study insofar as they help it discover the colonial causes of conflicts in Northern Ghana, particularly in the case of the Nawuri- Gonja conflict. 72 N.J.K. Brukum, “Chieftaincy and Ethnic Conflicts in Northern Region of Ghana, 1980-2002” in Steve Tonah ed., Ethnicity, Conflicts and Consensus in Ghana (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2007), 98- 115; N.J.K. Brukum, The Guinea-Fowl, Mango and Pito Wars: Episodes in the History of Northern Ghana, 1980-1991 (Accra: Ghana Universities Press, 2001); N.J.K. Brukum, “Ethnic Conflicts in Northern Ghana: An Appraisal” in Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana New Series, Nos. 4 &5, 2000- 2001, 131-147; N.J.K. Brukum, “Chiefs, Colonial Policy and Politics in Northern Ghana, 1897-1956” in Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, New Series, 1999, No. 3, 101-122; N.J.K. Brukum, “Ethnic Conflict in Northern Region of Ghana. A Study of the Gonja District, 1980-1994” in Mike Oquaye ed., Democracy, Politics and Conflict Resolution in Contemporary Ghana (Accra:Gold-Type Publications Ltd., 1995), 138-153. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 34 Hippolyt Pul’s thesis traced the genesis of inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic conflicts in Northern Ghana since 1957. He assesses the colonial policy of indirect rule which amalgamated smaller polities with the bigger ones. Like Brukum, he blames the causes of conflicts in post-colonial Northern Ghana on the colonial enterprise. Pul also identifies another cause of ethnic conflicts in Northern Ghana as the activities of youth associations and the political elite. 73 His work provides the pointers by which to examine the causes of the Nawuri-Gonja conflict. In a number of articles, Peter Skalnik examines the nature of the Nanum polity in the pre-colonial and colonial eras. 74 Using Nanum as a case study, Skalnik argues that post-colonial conflicts in Northern Ghana were the result of the imposition of an alien power model on societies by the colonial authorities. His works confirm the traditional argument that colonialism is largely blamable for the conflicts in Northern Ghana. Julia Jonson provides a perspective to the traditional argument that sees conflicts in Northern Ghana as the long-term effects of the colonial enterprise. 75 Jonson also identifies other causes, namely, the categorization of the peoples of the Northern Region of Ghana into “majority” and “minority” with its associated stereotypes; activities of youth associations; notions about traditional political authority and allodial rights. Her argument, which is shared by Dzodzi Tsikata and Wayo Seini, demonstrates the extent to which the struggle for traditional leadership underlay economic, social and political 73 A.S.H. Pul, “Exclusion, Association and Violence: Trends and Triggers of Ethnic Conflicts in Northern Ghana” (Duquesne University: unpublished M. A. Dissertation, 2003). 74 Peter Skalnik, “Questioning the Concept of the State in Indigenous Africa” in Social Dynamics, 1983, 9 (2), 11-28; Peter Skalnik, “On the Inequality of the Concept of the ‘Traditional State’” in Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law, 1987, Nos. 25 & 26, 301-325; Peter Skalnik, “Outwitting Ghana: Pluralism of Political Culture in Nanum” in Peter Skalnik ed., Outwitting the State (New Brunswick, 1989), 145-168. 75 Julia Jonson, “The Overwhelming Minority: Traditional Leadership and Ethnic Conflict in Ghana’s Northern Region” (Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE), 2007, Working Paper No. 30). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 35 matters, and generated conflicts in the Northern Region. 76 The works of Jonson, and Tsikata and Seini provide a generalization which runs counter to the central argument of this study, namely, that the question of allodial rights in Alfai lands serves as a nexus connecting the multiplicity of issues that underlay the Nawuri-Gonja conflict. Their works are significant for this study because they provide a dimension for a deeper interrogation of the causes of the Nawuri-Gonja conflict. In his work, Politics of Social Change in Ghana: The Konkomba Struggle for Political Equality, Benjamin Talton sees the causes of Konkomba conflicts with the Nanumba and Dagomba in terms of a struggle for social and political equality. 77 Talton argues that “for Konkomba and Konkomba leaders in particular, the 1981 conflict pushed their struggle for social and political equality from a local to a national issue.” 78 He also implied that government policies helped promote conflicts in the Northern Region of Ghana. His work helps this study to assess the extent to which government policies helped promote the Nawuri-Gonja conflict. In Ethnicity and the Making of History in Northern Ghana, Carola Lentz examines the colonial encounter, the evolution of ethnicity and the production of history in Northern Ghana. 79 Lentz’s focus of study was the Dagaba of Lawra-Nandom area. Lentz explains the impact of colonial policies on Lawra-Nandom area. Beyond, the colonial enterprise, Lentz sees land ownership as central to the conflicts in the Lawra- Nandom area. Though Lentz’s work was limited to the Lawra-Nandom area, it is useful to this study as it provides an insight into conflicts arising out of land ownership elsewhere in the North. 76 D. Tsikata and Wayo Seini, Identities, Inequalities and Conflicts in Ghana (2004, CRISE Working Paper 5). 77 Benjamin Talton, op.cit. 78 Ibid., 166. 79 Carola Lentz, Ethnicity and the Making of History in Northern Ghana (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2007). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 36 Emmanuel Bombande’s study “Conflicts, Civil Society Organisation and Community Peace Building in Northern Ghana’’ discusses conflicts in Northern Ghana since 1980. The study makes a number of arguments and points out useful lessons. 80 He concludes that the policies of British colonial administration were the central cause of conflicts in Northern Ghana, and outlines the various processes of peace building and conflict mediation in Northern Ghana. Bombande’s work does not discuss the Nawuri- Gonja conflict at length. Nonetheless, it is significant because it underscores the argument that sees conflicts in Northern Ghana as the long-term effects of the policies of the colonial enterprise. In addition, it is useful to this study as it provides information about conflict resolution mechanisms in Northern Ghana. In his article, “Bawku is Still Volatile: Ethno-Political Conflict and State Recognition in Northern Ghana”, Christian Lund discusses the political actors in Bawku. 81 His study explained how national political actors contributed to the Kusasi- Mamprusi conflict. Rooting the causes of the conflict in colonial policy, Lund explained how the interventions or meddling of post-colonial governments of Ghana, particularly the Government of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), led to increasing politicization of the conflict over the years. His work provides a basis for the interrogation of the operation of the colonial system in Alfai and how the actions and inactions of post- colonial governments of Ghana contributed to the Nawuri-Gonja conflict. F