Life in Dagbon after the King’s Murder and Crisis

Mistrust and prolonged uncoordinated reconciliation processes after conflicts in most African traditional societies have severe consequences. These can potentially tear further apart, the social fibre which hold the societies together. Such unhealthy dynamics in post-conflict societies are more disastrous than the conflict itself, as social conflict theorists and ethnomethodologists posit. The Dagbon crisis of March 2002 which led to the ‘murder’ of the King, Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II, exemplifies this. It took more than four years for the king to be buried, and to date, no funeral rite, which is a traditional prerequisite for possible enskinment of a successor, has been performed. In traditional terms, the Dagbon society is still mourning, and the pain of the crisis lingers on. The question this book seeks to answer, with quantitative (chi-square tests) and qualitative analysis is: ‘How has the stalemate affected the social and religious relationships among the Dagomba people?’ Students of sociology, history and conflict studies, governments and international organisations that seek to prevent conflicts and or understand post-conflict traditional societies would find this book handy.