Leadership of group championing 'Volta region' independence arrested (VIDEO)

Graphic Online Politics May - 06 - 2019 , 10:21 3 minutes read

The leadership of the Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF), a group based in Ho in the Volta Region agitating for the restoration of so-called Western Togoland as an independent state from Ghana have been arrested.

The Chairman of the HSGF, Mr. Charles Kormi Kudzodzi, alias Papavi Hogbedetor and eight others championing the independence of the Volta Region were said to have been picked on Sunday evening by a combined team of armed police and military personnel in Ho on Sunday and airlifted to Accra.

A video showing them being escorted has since been shared on social media.

The group was said to be in a meeting at about 5pm on Sunday when Mr Kudzordzi was evacuated by the armed police and military men.

They were airlifted by a helicopter.

Mr Kudzordzi who is over 80 and claims to have the history of the plebiscite that added Volta Region to Ghana at his fingertips, has championed the independence of Volta region from present day Ghana.

They were said to be planning to declare Volta Region a state on its own on May 8 for which meetings were been held to that effect.

This is the second time members of the group have been arrested in similar fashion after a similar arrest on February 23, 2019 while they were going on a health walk.

They were later released on bail.

The HSGF has been demanding the secession of the Volta Region and parts of the Northern, North East and Upper East Regions from Ghana to become the Western Togoland state as soon as possible.

They claim that residents of the Western Togoland voted to become a union with the Gold Coast (now Ghana) but the union had not been established up till now and that Ghana opted to be a unitary state under the plebiscite in 1956 [referendum] to be in union with a common constitution with the WesternTogoland and the Gold Coast but there had been no unionized constitution up to date.

The group further claims that the Western Togoland was not incorporated in the act establishing the Gold Coast by Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom.

It has been calling for the declaration of Western Togoland which is perceived as stretching from Kulungugu in the Upper East Region to Keta in the Southern coast by the Atlantic ocean as a sovereign state.

According to the group the Gold Coast voted to be a unitary state on July 12, 1956 while the Western Togoland voted to be in union with Ghana on July 9, 1956 and that the union had not been established till now.

The group is claiming that the size of Eastern Togoland was 22,000 square miles and the Western Togoland as 12,600 square miles.