A Guyanese chief, descended from Ghanaians taken across the Atlantic four centuries ago, has traced his lineage back to a classroom in Accra, the clearest sign yet that the Otumfuo Centre for Traditional Leadership is becoming the destination of choice for traditional leaders far beyond Ghana’s borders.
When Carlyle Franklin Sylvester Fraser, known by his stool name, Apagyahene Nana Kwasi Ntow, took his seat at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), he closed a circle four hundred years in the making. A traditional leader from Guyana, he had come with a compatriot whose ancestry mirrors his own to study chieftaincy at the Otumfuo Centre for Traditional Leadership (OCTL), in the very land his forebears were taken from generations ago.
“Four hundred years ago, a Fanti girl and an Ashanti boy were taken from this land called Ghana and were taken to Guyana,” he told the gathering. His family had guarded their identity across the centuries, always calling themselves “Kormantse.” “We found out Kormantse is not a tribe, it’s a town,” he said, Kormantse, on Ghana’s coast, from which enslaved Akan were once shipped to the Caribbean and Guyana.
“Over the years, they wanted to come back… That was passed on, until it reached me. And here I am today, at the Otumfuo Centre for Traditional Leadership, learning about chieftaincy.”
For the Centre’s Director, Dr Gerald Nyanyofio, the homecoming showed how far OCTL’s name now travels. “The most striking aspect,” he said, “was the fact that, due to the hard work of my predecessor directors, the Centre was able to attract two international students who came all the way from Guyana.” The first centre of its kind in Ghana and the West African sub-region, OCTL was established under UPSA and named in honour of the Asantehene, HRM Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, UPSA’s foremost Alumnus.
Now in its 17th edition, the programme is steadily positioning itself as the address for traditional leaders who want to sharpen their craft, whether they rule in Ghana or across the diaspora. “We continue to deepen our curriculum,” Dr Nyanyofio said, “so that any chief, queen mother or staff of a traditional council who passes through UPSA under the auspices of the Otumfuo Centre for Traditional Leadership will leverage a blend of good academic programmes to build their capacity and develop their communities.”
For the chief from Guyana, the mission is personal. “Culture is deep,” he said. “This is what this Centre is about, to keep our culture alive and pass it from generation to generation.” Then he sang the song his ancestors had never stopped singing, and, four centuries later, a room full of Ghanaian chiefs sang it back.
