Three widows will soon be free

April 15, 2008
Story: Samuel Duodu,
New Longolo
THE three ‘royal’ widows of the Mo Traditional Council in the Brong Ahafo Region have consented to the latest agreement by the council to elect Nana Adjei Adinkra II, Krontihene of New Longolo, as the acting President of the traditional council to perform the final funeral rites for the late chief.
This means that the widows, Madam Yaa Nsia, Madam Afua Nkume and Madam Ama Sumaa, who have performed widowhood rites for nine years since the death of their husband, Nana Kwaku Dimpo 11, chief of New Longolo in the Kimtampo North District, will be free after the funeral rites.
This develpoment follows a meeting held at New Longolo on April 4, 2008 between the family of the late chief and the Mo Traditional Council to elect an acting president for the council. During the meeting, July 25 to 31, 2008 was slated for the celebration of the final funeral rites of Nana Dimpo 11, who died in 1999.
The decision which was reached at the meeting has been communicated to the Brong Ahafo Regional House of Chiefs, which has also given its approval for the funeral of the late chief to be performed to ‘free’ the women.
The culture of the Mo Traditional Area demands that the successor to the deceased chief should perform the final funeral rites of his predecessor and that after the final funeral rites of the late chief that the widows would be freed from widowhood.
It will be recalled that the Daily Graphic in its April 5, 2008 edition published an appeal by the three ‘royal’ widows asking the Brong Ahafo Regional House of Chiefs to expedite action on the settling of the disputes among the three gates of the Mo stool for the final funeral rites of their late husband to be performed for them to be free.
The widows, who have been confined to their rooms and the compound of their homes for the past nine years, had rejected earlier moves by the head of their late husband’s family to perform the initiation to relieve them of widowhood describing such an action as a breach of tradition.