ABSTRACT
Nowhere was the first coup d'etat more welcome than in Ashanti, where the election was seen by many as an opportunity for the former United Party and its leader to even the score, and where it was held to be particularly appropriate that Afrifa (an Ashanti) should be among the leaders of the N.L.C. Few observers were surprised, therefore, when Progress secured every seat in the region, winning 78 per cent of the vote against 17 per cent for Gbedemah's National Alliance of Liberals—a party identified not only with the former C.P.P. but with the minority Ewe community. Our particular focus, however, is the three north-eastern Ashanti constituencies, Mampong North, Mam-pong South and Sekyere, comprising the sub-region traditionally referred to as ‘Sekyere’. 1 The area takes in more than one-fourth of Ashanti, but two-thirds consist of the largely uninhabited Afram Plains extending north and east from the high extension of the Kwahu Scarp which forms the backbone of the district. Most of the estimated 200,000 people 2 occupy the heavily-forested, mountainous south-west portion which lies within 35 miles of Kumasi. Making their homes in the towns and villages beneath these dramatic cliffs, or on the hilly plateau, most of the Sekyere people are farmers producing foodstuffs—plantain, cocoyam, yams and other staples—for consumption and marketing. Cocoa has brought significant surplus wealth, as evidenced by the numerous two and three-storey cement buildings in most of the larger towns, but Sekyere itself was never a major cocoa-growing area. Its more enterprising farmers have established farms in the frontier areas of the Brong-Ahafo Region, from which they annually bring home the harvest proceeds. 3 Wealth, prosperity, and the advantages they bring, are compelling goals for Sekyere citizens, whether measured in personal, family or community terms, and within a generation after the introduction of mission schools in 1896, education was recognised as the sine qua non of material progress. It is true that in 1960 only 20 per cent of all Sekyere District adults (over the age of 15) had ever attended a school; but the situation was changing fast, and a primary school is now to be found in almost every village.
