A GNA feature by Laudia Sawer
Tema, June 20, GNA – As the 2024 closed fishing season commences on July 1, Tema Newtown shivers with uncomfortable memories of deaths and injuries associated with the previous 2023 closed season.
The closed season, instituted as part of measures to curb the depletion of Ghana’s fish stock and allow fish spawning, kicked off in 2019 after several consultations and meetings among the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture, the Fisheries Commission and relevant stakeholders.
The two-month closed period for industrial fishermen and the one-month season for artisanal fishermen is backed by Section 84 of the Fisheries Act, 2002 (Act 625) which empowers the Ministry and the Fisheries Commission to declare a closed fishing season as a measure to ensure that fishes spawn at least once in their lifetime before caught by fishers.
Closed Season Homowo Incident
Despite the various complaints of lack of alternative work during the closed season and the government, through the ministry, providing what fishers describe as unsustainable food packages to them, the fishing community of Tema Manhean (Newtown) manages to comply with the directive not to fish for one month.
In the early hours of July 27, 2023, the community was thrown into a state of mourning, which is forbidden in the Ga community as it desecrates the annual Homowo period (a festival meaning hooting at hunger, celebrated to remember the famine its forefathers experienced), which in this case coincides with the closed season.
The fishers woke up to the news of the death of two fishermen after an alleged encounter with the security of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), which saw their canoe capsizing at sea when they went on a fishing expedition.
It turned out that even though it was left with three days for the sea to be opened for fishing activities for artisanal fishers, the Tema Traditional Council had made a special arrangement with the Ministry to allow a designated crew to fish for the specified fishes needed for the performance of traditional rites towards the celebration of the annual Homowo festival.
Nii Odametey II, the Tema Awudum Chief Fisherman, explained to the Ghana News Agency that the Ga communities were in their festival period and therefore needed to go on the expedition as their festival had always been held at that time of the year before the introduction of the closed season.
In response to the traditional leaders, fishers, and youth of the town, calling for justice, the Tema Metropolitan Security Council (MESEC), headed by Mr. Yohane Amarh Ashitey, a native of Tema, constituted a five-member committee to look into the incident and make recommendations.
After several weeks of work and a report presented to MESEC, the people are yet to receive any information on the said report.
The Tema Traditional Council’s (TTC) Stool Secretary and Shipi, Nii Armah Soumponu II, is wondering what has happened to the said report after almost a year, stressing that “Last year in July, in a similar situation, two people lost their lives at sea during a fishing expedition that preceded the Homowo festival.”
“A committee was formed, and up to now, we don’t know the outcome. We don’t know whether we have misconducted ourselves in any way, so we can take precautions,” adding that “if we have erred in a way, at least it must be brought to our attention; we have not seen any paper on it.”
Kplejoo Festival Killings
On Friday, April 12, 2024, yet another tragedy hit Tema Manhean during its final Kplejoo festival procession by the youth.
Kplejoo, which is a planting of seeds festival, is one of the two festivals celebrated by the people of Tema. It precedes the Homowo celebrations.
It is the period used for the planting of maize; a ban on drumming and noise-making is also put in place to allow for some calmness in the environment for the seeds to sprout.
One of the keys features of the occasion is the traditional Kple dance, a preserve of the traditional priests and priestesses who are required to dance within the confines of the shrines of the four principal gods of Tema. Their coordinated movements amidst singing extol the gods and the recall of their protection and ancestral deeds while praying to them for a bumper harvest.
The Kple festival is also used by the youth groupings as a peer review mechanism. They go to town dressed in uniforms and fancy apparels, wave flags, and sing songs composed for their intentions.
They give praise to the deserving and shame and reprimand those who have committed unacceptable acts during the period. The practice is to mimic how their forefathers sacrificed and relocated from their ancestral village in the old Meridian area to their current place to facilitate the construction of the Tema harbour.
Death strikes again
On the night of the final procession, two men were reportedly killed and three injured when some Kplejoo groups, on their usual festive mood, clashed with the Navy at the Eastern Naval Command environs over some misunderstanding, which resulted in the firing of live ammunition by Navy personnel in response to attacks from some of the youth.
Mr. Adjei Tetteh, one of the injured victims, told the GNA at his bedside at the Tema General Hospital that, as a member of the Asafo group in charge of the barrier mounted at the Tema Newtown bridge area, he in the company of others moved the metal barricades to the naval base junction at about 20:00 hours, following instructions they had received earlier.
He indicated that upon reaching the naval junction, he could hear some gunshots from afar as the navy personnel were preventing people from using the road in front of the base, adding that the gunshots became intense, so he decided to run away, only for him to realise that his feet had become stiff with blood oozing from them.
GAF Response and matters arising
The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), in its response to the incident, in a statement signed by Brigadier General E. Aggrey-Quashie, the Director General of Public Relations, disclosed that personnel at the Eastern Naval Base in Tema Newtown, had to fire warning shots to protect the sensitive installations of the base and repel attacks from some youth in Tema Newtown.
He said a vehicle belonging to the Eastern Naval Command of the Ghana Navy was attacked by a crowd partaking in the festival, leading to the damage of a naval vehicle and that three naval personnel on board sustained severe injuries.
According to the GAF, a mob, suspected to be part of the celebrants, later attacked the Tema Naval Base with stones and other implements with the aim of releasing three of their colleagues who were arrested and in the custody of the Navy.
“At a stage, the security of the base was threatened, and in order to protect the sensitive installations in the base, warning shots were fired to repel the attack,” he said.
This statement from the GAF did not go down well with the Tema traditional leaders and the youth.
They therefore resorted to performing some traditional rites against the killings of the two men and the injuries of the three, aimed at invoking the gods and ancestors to intervene in such killings and deaths during the celebration of their festivals.
Following these happenings, the Tema MESEC once again held an emergency meeting and referred the incident to the Greater Accra Regional Council for investigations due to the involvement of the Navy, which is a member of the MESEC.
Culture and Modernity
Culture, as was taught back then in primary school, is the way of life of a people. This covers various aspects of a group of people, from their language, food, dress, beliefs, values, traditions, and practices, which are often passed on from one generation to the other in various ways, including festivals.
According to a research (Shilliam, 2010), modernity refers to a condition of social existence that is radically different from all past forms of human experience, and modernization refers to the transitional process of moving from “traditional” or “primitive” communities to modern societies.
Conclusion
As technology advances, communities expand from their original native population to a more cosmopolitan one like Tema, which is both an industrial and harbour city.
Through the transitional processes, the indigenous people are losing some of their culture and traditional practices.
The local Tema people are sacrificing their native language, Ga, to the teaching of other local languages in schools located on their land.
Their traditional leaders have also complained on several occasions that they are losing their arable land on which they rely on for farming to industrialisation.
The people of Tema are obviously being restricted from practicing their beliefs and traditions through the celebration of their festivals.
As the close season kicks in soon and the celebration of the annual Homowo draws near, stakeholders must find a middle ground to ensure that in Ghana’s quest to use modern practices to replenish fish stocks, contentment and culture of of the people of Tema Newtown who have already sacrificed so much for the growth of Ghana’s civil and military maritime endeavours as well as industrialisation, should not be taken away.
A proper communication channel must be put in place between the traditional council, the fishers, and the relevant ministry and security agencies to ensure that proper guidelines are followed if there is a need to go on a festival fishing expedition in the wake of a closed season.
Exceptions must be made for the sake of safe and time honoured traditions.
On the Kplejoo processions made by the youth on the main street of Tema Newtown (there is only one straight road through the town from Tema Community One), measures must be put in place and proper announcements made to ensure that the procession does not impede the smooth movement of other inhabitants of the place, such as the Navy.
If needed, proper security must be put in place to ensure that no one gets disadvantaged over the other during that period and that, traffic is properly diverted through the industrial area into the town from the Bankuman/WAPCO road to avoid such clashes.
As much as modernity and modernization are important for human advancement, culture and traditions cannot also be done away with totally; there must be a way to blend the two beautifully without any casualties.
GNA