A former Minister of State at the Interior Ministry, Nana Obiri-Boahen has said that a remote cause of the weekend’s violent clashes at Tuobodom that claimed three lives could be traced to disagreements over which traditional authority the town must owe allegiance to. Tuobodom in the Brong Ahafo Region has two chiefs, with one ceding allegiance to the chief of nearby Techiman, also in the region while the other swears to the Golden Stool currently occupied by the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II. Obiri-Boahen told Adom FM’s Dwaso Nsem programme host, Ekuorba Gyasi, that a point of departure has been one of proximity, for while the authorities at Techiman feel that Tuobodom is in the Brong Ahafo Region and very close by and so they ought to administer the town, history however, has severally proved that the town and some others in the region have been administered by the Golden Stool, an authority located in the adjoining Ashanti Region. He said while he would have loved to see the people of one locality administered by one authority, tradition defines issues differently and an honest search of the history and other records of the people would prove that Tuobodom has always been under Ashanti and even as late as January 25, 1996, a late paramount chief of Techiman, in the company of three other paramount chiefs from Brong Ahafo visited the late Otumfuo Opoku Ware II in Kumasi to plead to be allowed to administer Tuobodom and other towns in the region which were administered under the authority of the Otumfuo. The request, according to Obiri-Boahen, was refused. Describing the weekend’s clashes as unfortunate, Obiri-Boahen said Techiman and Tuobodom should be able to live as one people for there are natives of each of the sides settled in the other. Story by Myjoyonline.com/Ghana