24/08/2025
Nana K. A Busia, Jr.
An Encounter with Nana Agyeiwaa Kordie Twebonsei Kontonhemaa who Affirmed A Known Truth:
A Tribute.
As Nana Ageiwaa Kordie Twebonse, Kontonhemaaa of Wenchi, joins Nananom of Konton clan (constituted by Ababa & Sisiriasefo) at Nseado, I write this tribute in her honour by recounting my encounter with her during which she affirmed a known historical truth.
I believe there is a duty on my part to share this experience, as a public educative piece at times like this, lest it be buried like the recent, albeit belated attempts, elsewhere to bury many other truths.
Nana Agyeiwaa Kordie TwenBone, (herein after Nana hemaa) was known and loved as a mother by some of my siblings who lived in the Washington, DC area in the United States, in the 1990s.
They visited Nanahemaa whenever she was on holiday in the East Coast, in the US. On my part, I was privileged to have met Nana Hemaa only once, sometime between 2010 and early 2011.
During this period, I was home in Wenchi for the Christmas holiday when, Nana Abrefa Nketia VII, as he then was, sent a page to invite me to come over to his private residence to see him. I felt summoned and did with pleasure.
It was a meeting to share with me and another person I went with, a comprehensive plan he was developing with the Krontihene, at the time, Nana Owusu Ansah Kokorkro II, of cherished memories, to bring about a sustainable and lasting peace in Wenchiman. This according to him, would bring about a lasting peace to Wenchi conflicts through the cessation of the chieftaincy disputes.
He started by taking us around and showing us photos of some of his predecessors, specifically, I think, that of Nana Kwaku Abrefa, Nana Kwame Abrefa, and Nana Abrefa Mmore Bediatuo. Thereafter, we sat down in his sitting room, and as he was laying out in great detail his peace plan and we were listening attentively, Nana hemaa was at some distance form the sitting room.
Nana hemaa was visibly unwell, and was either on a bed or an inclined chair, but from her distance, she interjected in the conversation: “They don’t seem to know or are refusing to know that the state sword of the Wenchiman, which is used to swear in a Wenchihene is named after Nana Nketia Kwasi, a Wenchihene who hailed from the Nkwaduano Royal Family.” Hence, the State sword called ‘ Afonaa Nketia” to this day.
Nana Nketia nodded and continued with his account. I pretended (my own way of learning) not to have heard her properly and respectfully pleaded with Nana hemaa about what she had said and she reiterated the same with much more clarity. I was then impelled to say that I have read and heard same story from other sources.
It is worthy of note that Nana hemaa was just affirming what already serious and credible scholars of Bono/Wenchi history have stated explicitly without any ambiguity.
The record is indeed clear on the fact the Wenchihene around the 1800s was Nana Nketia Kwasi from the Nkwaduano Yefre royal family, an uncontroversial fact carved in iron, which no historical revisionism would succeed in doing that.
Nana hemaa, rest in peace. Like your husband, the fine and very civil and enlightened Wenchihene, Nana Abrefa Nketia,VII who stood for some truth, you also did, and you will be rewarded in the world of our ancestors, Namanfoo, at Nseado,. Da yie, dimirifa due due Nana!!
