A senior Ghana Tourism Authority official used a national television platform to argue that no other traditional state has preserved its history as completely as Asanteman.
Broadcaster and tourism executive Gilbert Abeiku Aggrey Santana has described the Asante Kingdom as the strongest custodian of cultural heritage on the African continent, pointing to the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi as his main evidence.
Santana is Deputy Chief Executive Officer for Marketing and Special Duties at the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), the state agency responsible for regulating and promoting Ghana's tourism industry. He made the comments while serving as a guest judge on last Sunday's episode of Ghana's Most Beautiful (GMB), the television pageant in which contestants represent Ghana's regions and showcase their cultures.
The argument he made
Santana told the programme that Asanteman ranks among Africa's most powerful kingdoms and that its record of preserving tradition is unmatched by any other traditional paramountcy in Ghana.
"There is no traditional paramountcy that has preserved its heritage like Asanteman," he said, adding that the claim was "not tribal bigotry" but a verifiable fact. A paramountcy is a traditional area headed by a paramount chief.
He said the Ashanti Region and the Asante Kingdom appear on listings of the 11 to 15 most powerful kingdoms in Africa, and linked that standing to both the kingdom's military history and its present-day cultural life. The report of his remarks was carried by Daily Guide Network.
Why he pointed to Manhyia
Santana's central example was the Manhyia Palace Museum, the museum attached to the seat of the Asantehene in Kumasi. He said visitors there can view effigies of the occupants of the Golden Stool, from the first through to the sixteenth, in sequence.
That, he argued, is a level of documented continuity no other traditional state in the country can match. The Golden Stool is the sacred symbol of the Asante nation, and the current Asantehene is Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.
The diaspora link
Santana also argued that Asante identity is not contained within one region. He said its reach extends into Côte d'Ivoire and into parts of the Oti, Volta and Eastern regions of Ghana, citing Asante Akyem as an example.
He went further, drawing a connection to the Caribbean. He noted the similarity between the Asante flag and the flag of Jamaica, and said the Maroons of Jamaica trace their origins to Asante. The Maroons are communities descended from Africans who escaped slavery and established independent settlements.
That point will resonate with Ghanaians in the United States and elsewhere in the diaspora, many of whom travel home for Asante festivals and for heritage tourism initiatives that the GTA has been promoting in recent years.
Santana did not announce any new policy or programme in the remarks, which were made in his capacity as a pageant judge rather than at an official GTA event.
