The king is gone, now we need a hero.

The Asantehene Otumfuo Opoku Ware II died on Thursday 25th February of suspected pneumonia. Born in November 1919 as Barima Kwaku Adusei, he became Asantehene in 1970. The Asantehene will be laid in state from 21st of March and buried on the 25 of March. A new Asantehene will be elected after the burial and he will then take charge of the funeral.

The announcement of the death of Otumfuo Opoku Ware II should have come as no surprise to anybody. For years, there had been rumours and murmurs of his death. What was surprising was the manner of the announcement which seemed to have been forced on Manhyia because of a leak and subsequent announcement apparently by the BBC World Service on the day of his death. The leak could be attributed to the Otumfuo’s sudden and seemingly public occurrence. The palace was at pains to make its anger known and in the few days following, journalists were called to Manhyia to try and find out their sources of information. The anger of the palace is understandable and the events are regrettable in that it took away some of the dignity that the Asantehene deserved in death in spite of his shortcomings.

The palace is also partly to blame if the BBC correspondent who broke the news is to be believed. The question is why did the Asantehemaa let the said correspondent into her compound at that moment in time? For now, it all seems rather unsavoury but the initial anger seems to be dying a death of its own.

The announcement itself has not been met with great outpouring of emotion even in Kumasi because it appears that the Asante nation had long seen him as a hindrance rather than a means for progress and change. In an era when the Asante nation required inspired leadership, he not only dithered at best but decayed from one word and action to the next sometimes making his presence in the affairs of the nation rather irrelevant. If the nation does mourn, and I doubt it will do with any emotion, it will not be for what he was or stood for but for what he could have been or could have stood for. It will also be for the lost ground that he has cost the nation. That is the shame. That he never took the slightest interest in the progress of the nation is the greater shame. He had seemed totally oblivious to the legacy he had inherited ending up as a source of embarrassment.

Regrettably, there is nothing that the Asante nation can attribute to him or remember him by, nothing that the nation with hand on heart can say that during the reign of Opoku Ware II, this is how far the nation went. That the nation did not sink further is a testament of its resilience and an enduring will. Perhaps the nation needed somebody like him to remind us of our history that its underlying spirit has merely gone to sleep and it might need to wake up.

He could have regarded the eighty or so years before his reign as the period spent by the nation in the wilderness. Instead, he extended that period by twenty nine years. What Opoku Ware II should have done was to push forward Asante economic development underlined with a cultural conservatism. He did neither and yet he was the one in the best position in a hundred years to do so. The result is that the Asante nation slightly over a hundred years ago was highly developed and the rulers in spite of the charge of illiteracy had more vision than the Asante nation of today and indeed any African country today without making allowance for time. He was nowhere in manner and stature like the man that my great.........grand maternal aunt married, Opoku Ware I. It will be understandable if the old do not mourn because he let them down. They are partly to blame anyway because they did not stand up to him with notable exceptions that I do not wish to name. It will be understandable too if the young do not mourn him either because he gave them nothing to be proud of. But then again the nation must mourn, we must mourn how much ground we have lost and how our standards and expectations have been lowered. We must mourn too the indignity of the occupant of the stool that has tarnished us all. His reign will most certainly go down in history as the worst and most feckless Asantehene ever judging by the opportunity he had. Sadly in doing so, he has made the words of Prempe II come true. Prempe II had used a few words unrepeatable, to describe him. That was what made Opuku Ware take fright and go to England to study law. He did fear for his life and was in no hurry to return. That partly explains why he spent 10 years in England. As most people have testified, his choice as Asantehene surprised him.

For now, we await the verdict of Asantehemaa and the kingmakers as to who we get next. If they hold their nerve, pride and eventual arrogance, then Akwesi Agyeman will not succeed in his ambition to become Asantehene. If they don’t then we might as well give up the ghost of our past. There is opposition to his candidature but that opposition seem to have been founded on wrong grounds. There is nothing wrong with his eligibility, the problem is his suitability to lead the nation. History has a rather awkward habit of repeating itself. The scenario is pretty much the same as that existed at the death of Prempeh I with the later to be Prempeh II cast in the role of Akwesi Agyeman. I hope for the sake of the Asante nation, the same machinations that led to the selection of Prempeh II does not lead to the selection of Akwesi Agyeman. If they make the right choice, it will be the rebirth of the nation and I suspect the new Asantehene will be called Osei Tutu II or Kwaku Dua IV. What is not in doubt is, as has been the case for over 250 years, the new Asantehene will be the descendant of Abrefi Yaa.

Kwaku Akuoko, Accra & Kumasi.