March 28, 2024

The Homeland Study Group Foundation, (HSGF), a separatist movement campaigning for the secession of the Volta region into an independent Western Togoland State has declared their independence out of Ghana yesterday.

The octogenarian founder and leader, Mr. Charles Komi Kudzordzi alias Papavi Hogbedetor made the declaration at a public gathering in Ho on Saturday November 16, 2019.

The event which was monitored by TheHawk Newspaper via a Facebook live stream at the former premises of Unity Rural Bank, few meters away from the Ho Police Training school.

Papavi Hogbedetor, the 85 year old separatist leader, speaking in the native Ewe language recounted their struggle to restore the pre-independence Western Togoland territory, a German protectorate which was joined to the then Gold Coast to form the new independent country ,Ghana on March 6, 1957 under circumstances the group believed were illegal.

Setting the grounds for the declaration Saturday afternoon, he said” We’ve all witnessed what happen recently when we (Volta region) were forgotten by the government in its budget. Can a parent can forget about their children? We’re not their children, so they have forgotten about us.”

He then went ahead to declared that” from midnight today November 16, 2019 entering tomorrow, We’re now Western Togoland state.”

The announcement sent his supporters into spontaneous wide jubilation, as some waved the supposed flag of the Western Togoland.

Moments after the declaration however, the old man whisked away from the scene by his loyalist in a waiting car.

It would be recalled that three members of the Volta secessionist group, were arrested on March 7, 2017 after they had held an event in Ho to mark Ghana’s 60th independence anniversary.

At that event, the group made known its intention to declare the Volta Region and parts of Northern and Upper East Regions an independent state with the name, Western Togoland – a territory which existed prior to Ghana’s independence.

Some of the group members were also spotted wearing T-shirts with the inscription, ‘9th May Is Our Day’ at the top and ‘A Citizen of Western Togoland’ at the base of the shirt.

Subsequently, the group’s founder, Charles Kormi Kudjordji, with two others – Martin Asiamah Agbenu, and Divine Odonkor – were arraigned before the Ho high court and charged together with four others (in absentia) for treason felony and conspiracy to commit same.

The three were later granted a GH¢50,000 bail each with two sureties to be justified.

The AG later filed a motion to drop the charges and be substituted with a lesser charge since their activities did not warrant the charges levelled against them.

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