The two sides in the Dagbon conflict, (the Andani and Abudu Gates,) have agreed, in a new spirit of reconciliation, to resume the peace process between them, under the auspices of three eminent kings led by Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.
This welcome development followed a closed door meeting held by President John Mahama with the two sides, the eminent persons, the National Peace Council and the President of the National House of Chiefs, government announced Tuesday.
According to the Presidency, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II and his colleagues, Yagbonwura Tuntumba Bore Essa I, Overlord of the Gonja Traditional Area and the Nayiri Naabohagu Mahami Abdulai Sheriga, Overlord of the Mamprugu Traditional Area are expected to announce the timetable for their follow-up meetings and inform the two sides shortly.
Clashes between the two gates in Yendi from March 25-27, 2002, resulted in the death of the Dagbon Overlord, Ya Na Yakubu Andani II and dozens of others.
Then president John Agyakum Kufuor instituted a Commission of Inquiry, chaired by Justice I.N.K. Wuaku,
to investigate the Yendi disturbances, identify the perpetrators and make appropriate recommendations.
The Commission reccommended among others, that the Government should make conscious efforts to reconcile the two royal gates of Dagbon.
Some Forty-one (41) persons including a former District Chief Executive for Yendi, Mr Mohammed Habib Tijani, suspected to be linked to the atrocity, were arrested in 2010 in a swoop by the security. It was to partly fulfil of a campaign pledge by the late president John Evans Atta Mills, to find lasting peace to the Dagbon area.
Fifteen of them were then put before a Fast Track High Court in Accra, following rigourous screening.
They however acquitted and discharged after court held that the prosecution also failed to prove that the charred remains of an adult male body were that of the Ya-Na to warrant the prosecution of the accused persons in the first place.
For 600 years the Abudu and Andani clans, named after two sons of the ancient Dagbon king Ya Naa Yakubu I, cordially rotated control of the kingdom centered in Yendi.
As of January 2014, a regent has acted as seignior of the kingdom (installed 2006) until a new ruler is chosen to occupy the revered Lion Skins of Yendi.
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