PRESIDENT MAHAMA VINDICATES MARTIN AMIDU BY ADMITTING THAT ASANTEHENE’S BAWKU CONFLICT MEDIATION FAILED
PRESIDENT MAHAMA VINDICATES MARTIN AMIDU BY ADMITTING THAT ASANTEHENE’S BAWKU CONFLICT MEDIATION FAILED.
BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU
The truth shall always prevail no matter how long it takes!
The meeting between President John Mahama and the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs at the Jubilee House on Tuesday 10 February 2026 as reported by Joy News brought out the fact of an admission by the President in relation to the Bawku conflict Mediation by the Asantehene that: “the mediation was intended to achieve a traditional settlement that would allow the parties to accommodate each other, as had been done in the past. However, the process failed to produce such an outcome.”
It is precisely because mediation is so different from arbitration or adjudication that in my article dated 14 December 2025 and published on 15 December 2025, I demanded that:
“The government should be informing Ghanaians first and foremost whether we should be expecting an arbitration report containing the findings of a sole arbitrator which is binding on the Kusasi and Mamprusi people of Bawku and its environs or a mediator’s report setting out the agreement reached by the Kusasi and Mamprusi people themselves during the mediator’s facilitation efforts.”
The Government ignored my demand and went ahead to issue “The Government of Ghana Official Statement on the Bawku Conflict Mediation Report” accepting the findings and recommendations of the Asantehene’s Bawku Mediation Report. The government has since purported to be implementing that report in all communications issued by the Government except in proceedings in the courts of law where the legality of the Asantehene’s mediation outcome would have been subjected to the acid test of legality.
On Tuesday 10 February 2026, however, the President openly admitted to the Chiefs and people of the Upper East Region and the Ghanaian public that the Asantehene’s mediation failed to produce the expected outcome of “a traditional settlement that would allow the parties to accommodate each other, as had been done in the past.” Thus far, the President and I are agreed that what the people of Ghana were entitled to expect from the Asantehene’s Bawku Mediation was “a mediator’s report setting out the agreement reached by the Kusasi and Mamprusi people themselves during the mediator’s facilitation efforts.”
This objective truth came out of the President’s own mouth to the Chiefs of the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs and is available on the electronic media that mediators whether traditional or whatever form of mediation cannot usurp the functions of arbitrators or adjudicators in making decisions binding on the parties to the mediation process.
The President, however, attempted to excuse his own failings to implement the existing law on Bawku Chieftaincy since he assumed office as President of Ghana on 7 January 2025 by justifying the Asantehene’s usurpation of the functions of an arbitrator and an adjudicating court when he stated that: “Once it didn’t happen, the mediator [Asantehene] had no option but to revert to what the law says. His report basically stated what the lawful position was.”
The Government’s admission on Tuesday 10 February 2026 that the mediation by the Asantehene had failed to achieve its objective of allowing “ the parties to accommodate each other, as had been done in the past” vindicates my contention in my discourse dated 18 December 2025 and published on 19 December 2025 that: “The Government of Ghana Official Statement on the Bawku Conflict Mediation Report cannot be an official Government Statement anchored under the 1992 Constitution and the laws of Ghana.” And indeed, the President stated clearly the position of the Constitution and laws of Ghana when he told the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs at their meeting in the Jubilee House that the government has no business meddling in chieftaincy matters as to who shall be chief or who is the chief of any traditional area in Ghana.
It follows from the foregoing that no government has the authority to sidestep the Constitution and laws of Ghana in appointing any person, however exalted, to purport to make binding decisions affecting the status of chiefs in any traditional area in Ghana. This explains the contention in my discourse published on 19 December 2025 that: “One cannot put something,(the government statement), on nothing, (the mediator’s report), the mediator’s power being pertinently unconstitutional and unlawful.”
My contention was to reinforce what I stated in my discourse published on 15 December 2025, a day before the Asantehene presented his Bawku Conflict Mediation Report on 16 December 2025. I stated that:
“The duty of governments under the 1992 Constitution is to uphold the status quo ante 7 January 1993 and to manage legitimate chieftaincy conflicts within the regime of the 1992 Constitution. When politicians try to interfere in chieftaincy or land conflicts or encourage their constituents to seek self help when they are in power, one begets what unfortunately happened in Dagbon under the Kufuor administration.”
I, therefore, entirely agree with President John Dramani Mahama that no President acting in accordance with his oath of office can “allow personal feelings to influence the implementation of the law.” The President could not have stated it better when he told the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs at the Jubilee House that:
“I cannot be sentimental in terms of implementing the law. Everybody knows what the law says: the truly gazetted Chief of Bawku Naba is Naba Abugrago Azoka. That is what the law says. He is gazetted. I cannot have somebody who is not gazetted come and say, ‘I am the Bawku Naba too. I have to do what I have to do to ensure peace in Bawku, which is what we have done. The law is the law.”
John Dramani Mahama held the position he reiterated to the Chiefs of the Upper East Region at the Jubilee House meeting long before he won the 7 December 2024 Presidential elections. On 3 February 2024 he stated in the Bawku-Naba’s palace during his campaign to be president again that: “.... there is no chieftaincy conflict because there is only one known king, Asigri Abugrago Azoka II.” The exact words used by then candidate Mahama which states clearly that “there cannot be two kings in one kingdom” can be listened to on YouTube, particularly the last five minutes of the video recording: “Live Now/ John Mahama Courtesy call the paramount chief of Kusaug (Bawku Central) #Building Ghana...”
My published discourse of 15 December 2025 and 19 December 2025 underscored the objective fact that President Mahama did not need the Asantehene’s Bawku Mediation Report “to uphold the status quo ante 7 January 1993 and to manage legitimate chieftaincy conflicts within the regime of the 1992 Constitution” on who is the legitimate Overlord of the Bawku Traditional Area let alone to actualize the fact or come to the realization on 10 February 2026 that: “ The law is the law.”
I asked President Mahama a question in my discourse published on 19 December 2025 when I said that: “ President Mahama enforced the status quo during his previous tenure, so what went wrong this time round to warrant him farming out a presidential responsibility outside the constitutional scheme to a mediator? ....” The answer to this question is still outstanding because President Mahama has not slavishly followed whatever former President Akufo-Addo stated in his handing over notes which is why we have the Accra Reset Agenda as this government’s policy.
When the Asantehene rendered his performance on 16 December 2025 in “The formal presentation of the Bawku Mediation Report to President John Dramani Mahama ....”, he boasted that he had, from the inception of the mediation, restrained successive governments from effecting the arrest of Mr Abagre out of respect for the Nayiri.
Is the Asantehene admitting that he is responsible for the needless death of the people of Bawku and its environs between 24 October 2024 and 24 December 2025 when President Mahama abducted Alhaji Abagre from Bawku to Accra without a court warrant just to enable the Asantehene complete an unlawful mediation paid from the public purse?
President Mahama should not have been hoodwinked into accepting a pertinent untruth in the face of the evidence that the Asantehene was powerless to stop the killings from 24 October 2024 when former President Akufo-Addo’s national security apparatus delivered Alhaji Abagre to his house in Bawku. Where were the Asantehene and the Akufo-Addo government when the 15 February 2023 enskinment in Nalerigu took place under their noses?
President Mahama sought to escape responsibility for ceding his constitutional mandate to enforce the Constitution and the laws of Ghana to the Asantehene by claiming that: “Once it didn’t happen [i.e. the mediation outcome] the mediator [Asantehene] had no option but to revert to what the law says. His report basically stated what the lawful position was.” But President Mahama knew the law all along and did not need the Asantehene, a mediator, to tell him what the law said, having implemented the same law in his previous tenure as President of Ghana.
I had estimated in my discourse published on 19 December 2025 that between 7 January 2025 and 16 December 2025 when the nation was treated to the Asantehene’s failed mediation report performance more citizens from Bawku and its environs died than during the previous eight years under his predecessor. On 10 February 2026, however, President Mahama told the Chiefs of the Upper East Regional House of Chief that: “While the mediation was ongoing, there was violence and killings. It’s estimated that about 119 people lost their lives during the period of the mediation. But thank God, ultimately, his report came out.” Even the President of Ghana is depending on estimates of the dead for the period under his watch while clearly admitting that by his failure to implement the Constitution and laws on the Bawku Affairs so many citizens of Ghana lost their lives needlessly. God helps those who help themselves, therefore, a leader cannot attribute his personal indecision to God: that is why indecision leading to loss of lives is a grievous failure of command in the public service and a capital one in the military.
Any reasonable citizen would have expected President Mahama to have apologized to the Chiefs of the Upper East Region and Ghanaians for the consequences of his indecision in implementing the existing law that led to the needless death of so many compatriots entrusted to his care by the 1992 Constitution and the Republic of Ghana. I find it distasteful that those who lost their lives between 7 January 2025 and 24 December 2025 were and are being treated not as citizens of Ghana whose families at the least deserve an apology but as part of President Mahama and Asantehene’s private kraal whose lives do not matter or are expendable.
I need not underscore the fact that the failure or refusal of the Government to enforce the law between 7 January 2025 and 24 December 2025 as President Mahama promised the nation on 3 February 2024 has transformed and escalated the Bawku conflict to a higher level that has roped in the Nayari who was the party to the Asantehene mediation with the Bawku-Naba, Asigiri Abugrago Azoka II and not Alhaji Seidu Abagre who has now become just a low hanging fruit in the transformed and escalated Bawku Conflict.
This was an avoidable transformation and escalation by the government if it had simply implemented the existing law as the President had promised. Unfortunately, the ordinary person does not understand the dynamics of conflict and the cyclical nature of conflict to appreciate that the Asantehene mediation accentuated rather than deescalated the issues in conflict by making the Nayiri the major conflict party instead of Alhaji Seidu Abagre.
History will surely determine whether President Mahama’s submission to the Asantehene’s mediation brings more peace to Bawku or becomes the electoral politics as usual of another political party in power.
Martin A. B. K. Amidu
12 February 2026.