Retaliations in Upper Dixcove in the Ahanta West district of the Western region, have left several residents injured over a chieftaincy dispute.

It was the chief of Lower Dixcove and several subjects who were attacked Monday dawn leading to the kidnapping of the chief, Nana Kwesi Agyeman IX.

Three days since this attack, heavily-built men believed to be linked to the Lower Dixcove traditional authority have retaliated. Thugs broke into homes, vandalised properties and harassed women.

Some have fled to Busua, a nearby community.

The tension between the two areas is over traditional control over Tuorem, an area in the coastal town of the district. But a court judgment in September 2001, granted the right to install a chief to Upper Dixcove, Obrempon Hima Dekyi.

Photo:Upper Dixcove where Obrempon Hima Dekyi is paramount chief

But the judgment has done little to quell the dispute over the land. 

Inside story: The 300-yr old British-Dutch struggle inherited by two Dixcove chiefs

The attack on Monday on Lower Dixcove chief, Nana Agyeman IX, was in reply to disruptions of a traditional activity by the Upper Dixcove traditional authority some three months ago.

Photo: Lower Dixcove chief Nana Agyeman IX was attacked on Monday and kidnapped.

The police on Tuesday, announced the arrest of four thugs linked to the Upper Dixcove chief for the violence at the Lower Dixcove palace and kidnapping of the chief, Nana Agyeman IX who was resecued later by the police.

Dixcove, a name part of the colonial relic so woven into Ghana’s socio-cultural fabric, is a coastal town named after Fort Dixcove built in 1683 by the British.

The British transferred the Fort to the Dutch in 1868 and later four years later it was transferred back to the British in 1872.

The power rift between the British and the Dutch over the control of towns in the Western region split several communities into Upper and Lower areas. Axim, Sekondi and Komenda all have Upper and Lower areas.

And this split continues to play out, more than 300 years after it started even though the two colonial powers are far gone from the scene. In Dixcove, the British controlled the Upper, the Dutch controlled the Lower.

There is the Upper Dixcove where Obrempon Hima Dekyi is now paramount chief 336 years after the fort was built. Down below him is the Lower Dixcove where Nana Kwesi Agyeman IX is also paramount chief.