Cameroon: The Stakes and Challenges of Governance and Development

10. The Afo-A-Kom and Governance in Kom (C.1865 – 1973)

Chapter Ten The Afo-A-Kom and Governance in Kom (C.1865 – 1973) Walter Gam Nkwi Introduction: Sculpture in Indigenous African Politics According to Hugh Honour and John Fleming (1995), most works of African art were created for a purpose, whether religious, social, political or exceptionally, to express the artist’s inner vision. FichnerBathus (1992:3024) suggests the following purposes of African art (sculpture): to create beauty; to provide decoration; to reveal the truth; to immortalise; to express religious values; to express fantasy; to record and commemorate experience; to reflect the social and cultural context; to protest injustice and raise consciousness and to elevate the common place. Over the years Art scholars have researched on Art and strategies of governance. In other words they attempted to show how artworks have acted as a source of statecraft in indigenous pre-colonial Africa. In 1972, Douglas Fraser and Herbert M. Cole edited a volume of essays entitled African Art and Leadership. In that volume particular attention was paid to royal art; the function of leadership arts and the structure (materials, style, form and iconography were related). The volume further contends that leadership arts have crucial functions in maintaining the position of rulers; the arts contribute to their social position, their political activities and their symbolic power. Furthermore, the volume contends that rulers are set apart from the ruled and this separation is expressed artistically in their ability to possess objects made of more costly scarce and refractory material objects which are monumental in size and very elaborately done, all in contrast to what commoners possess. Leon Siroto (1972) shows how the Bakwele, in adopting the beetle masked ritual from neighbouring people, took the goon mask out of its ritual context and used it in the field of competition for power between lineages. The mask became a perfect distancing mechanism for empowering them to carry on their activities of 200 Cameroon: The Stakes and Challenges of Governance and Development extortion and assassination with impunity on a back ground of “war games” between the lineages. Siroto, gives an excellent sense of the changes in behaviours and usages in response to new situations, but even more, he indicates how art itself is used in bringing about new balances of power. Works of art such as the Altar of the Hand, Benin, illustrate the skill with which the Benin manipulated bronze, as well as the importance of symbolism to their art. The many figures, which have been cast in relief around the circumference of this small work, are meant to venerate the king and glorify his divine office. The king is the central figure in both the relief and in the free standing figures on top of the altar. He holds the staffs of his office in his hands and his head is larger than those of his attendants (Fichner-Rathus, 1992; 472-478). The centrality of this configuration points to the fact that Benin art symbolised unity, sacredness and politics of governance in an indigenous African polity. In the seventeenth century, Osei Tutu and his friend Okomfo Anokye worked together using a “golden stool” to forge the heterogeneous Akan groups into a cohesive strong union. Basil Davidson (1977:242-243) vividly captures the situation in the following words: Okomfo Anokye declared that he had a mission from Nyame, supreme god of the Akan Nyame, who ordered him to make the Asante into a great people. To spread this message the new Asante, ruler, Osei Tutu who was working closely with Ankye called a vast assembly of people. At this gathering Okomfo Anokye brought down from the sky a wooden stool that was partly covered in gold and made it rest on Osei Tutu’s knees. Having done this, Okomfo Ankye announced that the golden stool contained the soul or spirit of the whole Asante people. He told the chiefs and people that their power and health, bravery and welfare, were all symbolised in this stool and the chiefs and people accepted this (Also read Ayittey, 1992:49; Fage, 1969: 169; Webster and Boahen, 1980:85; Ajayi and Crowder, 1976:25). 201 Nkwi: The Afo-A-Kom and Governance in Kom The above quotation is an eloquent and classic illustration of how Osei Tutu and Anokye used a work of art (the Golden stool) for political expediency. The incongruous Asante Empire recognised the Golden stool created by Osei Tutu as the symbol of their...