It's not unusual for retiring Ghanaians in the United States to assume chieftaincies (Yeboah's royal lineage comes from his great-great-grandmother; he was recruited to the position by his older brother, the head of the Agona family clan and a former Manhattan hospital admittance officer), but when Yeboah told some tenants in his building about it they organized a celebration in his honor.
Mandla's chieftaincy represents continuity, in one sense, for the Mandela family.
Following the dispute over the graves, the king called into question Mandla Mandela's chieftaincy and then declared him stripped of the title even though it was the king himself who formally appointed him head of Mvezo village.
Confident that he will stave off the challenge, Mandla says he accepted the chieftaincy at Nelson Mandela's request.
"The Nigerians will eat everything we have," says a former official at the Ghanaian ministry of chieftaincy and culture.Nollywood's moguls make no attempt to deny their influence over the continent they just regard it as a thoroughly good thing.
It is thus common, even in contemporary Igbo society, for one's kinship groups, age sets, chieftaincy title, professional, sex-based, and other groups to fight for redress on behalf of their wronged members.
ON A blustery day in 2007, Nelson Mandela (pictured on the left) watched his eldest grandson take up the chieftaincy of Mvezo, a village deep in South Africa's Eastern Cape where Mr Mandela was born and where his father was once chief.Mr Mandela had as a young man fled a traditional life in the Thembu royal house, escaping an arranged marriage for the big city of Johannesburg.
Mandela's quest narrative begins with the dispossession of his father from a chieftaincy, perhaps for standing up to the British, and the struggle of the young Mandela to find his place in the Thembu royal court.
The Urhobo have honored him with two chieftaincy titles.
Chieftaincy is being redefined in conformity with modern government, and some settlements do not participate in chieftaincy at all.
