Border festivals and the work they perform

The world is awash with festivals of different kinds, spurred on by the kind of free publicity and real-time reporting that social media affords. Academic research on festivalization is heavily skewed towards Europe, the Americas and East Asia, and towards particular manifestations of the festival tradition: notably with respect to film, food, theatre and variations on carnival (Gouthro and Fox Reference Gouthro, Fox and Mair2018). Globally, there are festivals that seek to transcend borders, such as on the US–Mexico border (Peña Reference Peña2022) and at Gorizia/Nova Gorica on the Italy–Slovenia border.Footnote ² The most high-profile cultural festivals in West Africa invoke regional, continental and diasporic unity, even as they underpin expressions of national pride. The best-known examples are FESPACO (Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou) and FESTAC (Festival of Black Arts and Culture). The literature points to a shared desire to promote and control the valorization of African cultural products, but also to a tension between the quest for artistic autonomy and the efforts of governments to instrumentalize festivals for political ends (Apter Reference Apter2005; Şaul Reference Şaul2020). While these festivals have been targeted at urban audiences, they are quite distinct from those that have arisen organically from within the city. These may celebrate cosmopolitanism, but they often recognize the claims to precedence of particular quarters and segments of the urban population (Goerg Reference Goerg1998).

Rather closer to our concerns are the traditional festivals that have proliferated across West Africa. From colonial durbars to the stagings designed to cement the power base of postcolonial regimes, like that of Gnassinbge Eyadéma in Togo, festivals have long served to inscribe political dominance. The democratic openings of the 1990s created a context in which other types of community festivals could be revived or freshly established. Indeed, in the context of a return to government by the ballot box, politicians looked for new platforms to project their image. This is well documented in Ghana, where the proliferation of festivals was also linked to the reassertion of traditional authority, in a context where chieftaincy was removed from the purview of government under the 1992 constitution (Lentz Reference Lentz2001; Lentz and Wiggins Reference Lentz and Wiggins2017; Odotei Reference Odotei2002).

T. C. McCaskie has detailed how the annual cycle that culminated in the celebration of Odwira underlined the centrality of the monarchy to the reproduction of Asante society in the nineteenth century. It survived in a muted form in the colonial period, but was only fully restored in 1985 after a hiatus of nearly ninety years (McCaskie Reference McCaskie1995: 151; Rathbone Reference Rathbone, Lambert and Weiler2017). Many festivals today hinge on a cycle of renewal that derives from the seasonality of farming and fishing. A case in point is the Ga festival of Homowo in Accra, the description of which by Quartey Papafio (Reference Quartey Papafio1920) is recognizable a century later. Contemporary festivals typically combine historical references, cultural performance, commercialism and good old-fashioned politics (Adrover Reference Adrover2015). The revival and invention of festivals has been a feature across Ghana, reflecting a fierce competition for regional and national attention. Festival organizers have jostled to find the most attractive themes, the most generous sponsors, the most desirable time slot in a choked calendar, and the most eminent guests. In the Volta Region, Hogbetsotso in Anlo used to attract the greatest publicity. However, the revival of Te Za (the Yam Festival) in Ho, after the eventual resolution of a decades-long chieftaincy dispute, and a proliferation of festivals focused on local products, has created a more varied and competitive festival landscape.

Border festivals share many attributes with these traditional festivals, but they also manifest their own particularities. Colonial governments frowned on cross-border allegiances that communities sought to keep alive (Adotey Reference Adotey2018: 570). In the decades after independence, governments were generally willing to allow local trade and family connections to continue, but were sensitive about anything that might appear to question the legitimacy of the borders themselves. Festivals were not encouraged for fear that they might undermine efforts to cement national unity (Flint Reference Flint2006). A freeing up of the political space in the 1990s permitted expressions of cultural affinity that could be justified on the grounds of reversing the baleful legacies of colonial partition. In some cases, border festivals have been promoted as a means to reduce conflict. This was the case, for example, in the Casamance region of Senegal, where festivals for peace attracted donor support (Nugent Reference Nugent2019: 490). In a more muted way, this logic has informed an official willingness to embrace festivals along the Ghana–Togo border, where the schisms surrounding the Ewe/Togoland unification campaign of the 1950s and 1960s continue to resonate today (Nugent Reference Nugent2002; Reference Nugent2019; Skinner Reference Skinner2015).

Some traditional festivals seek to attract participants from across international borders. This would include religious festivals, such as those associated with Muslim holidays and the veneration of saints in the Senegambia. It would also include those that aim to rekindle memories of having once occupied the same political space. In Togo, Agbogboza seeks to reconnect all the Ewe people to their notional cradle in Notsie (or Nuatja). Equally, many of the festivals in the Volta Region, such as Hogbetsotso, mark the arrival of particular Ewe subgroups at their present location after their flight from Notsie. Ghanaian chiefs attend Agbogboza, and Agokorli IV of Notsie has been guest of honour at festivals in the Volta Region. The festivals at Notsie and Anloga (Anlo) unfold quite far from the physical border, but participants need to make the crossing both ways. However, they are distinct from the festivals that unfold around the border, even if they involve some of the same cast of actors.

First of all, despite their local framing, border festivals ironically tend to be spatially dispersed. The diaspora in the respective capital cities and those residing in Europe and the USA play an active part in raising funds, publicizing the events and carrying out much of the practical organization. While the events unfold at the border, the festivals inhabit many other physical and virtual spaces where creative ideas about transcending the divisive effects of partition are constantly being generated. Second, while all festivals involve filtering and codifying elements of culture prior to their enactment through public performance (Apter Reference Apter2005), this has a particular salience at the border. The reality is that divergent administrative and social practices have become ingrained on two sides of the line. This is most obvious with respect to chieftaincy. Whereas chiefs in Ghana have never been part of the administrative apparatus, the incumbents are treated as a special kind of functionary in Togo (Van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal Reference Van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal2000). Who is qualified to judge authenticity is ultimately a political question and much depends on the relationships between key actors on the two sides.

The third and most important difference is that these festivals are expected to reflect the two-sidedness of the border. Treating the two sides equally may be contentious where there are more people living on one side than the other, or where the main towns, markets and centres of chiefly authority are differentially distributed. Where the asymmetry is stark, the decision to locate all the key events on one side may be uncontroversial. In other permutations, festival organizers seek to alternate from one year to the next. This is the model that has been adopted in the Masa festival on the Chad–Cameroun border. The most symbolically satisfying, but logistically complex, solution is to distribute the main events between locations on the two sides.

Fourth, most traditional festivals tend to involve political authorities, whose presence opens up the possibility of a negotiation (Lentz Reference Lentz2001; Lentz and Wiggins Reference Lentz and Wiggins2017), but this has an added twist in border regions where a concern for security complicates logistics. Having district/prefecture-level authorities on board confers a certain legitimacy, but it also ensures that vehicles and participants can cross the border unhindered. Because this normally requires both sets of authorities to concur, festival organizers help to keep a dialogue going between the relevant agencies at the border. This is an example of how festivals shape border governance in an unspectacular fashion. As already indicated, festivals afford an opportunity for politicians to garner much-needed publicity, at the same time as affording a public platform on which communities can table their own demands. Border festivals afford moments of exception, at one remove from everyday life, during which uncomfortable truths can be spoken and explicit requests tabled. Governments are thought to be wary of financing projects in border areas for fear of fuelling smuggling or disproportionately benefiting foreign nationals. On a public platform, the demands for improved roads, new bridges and all-weather markets can be justified in terms of the benefits they bring to the immediate community, but also for what they contribute to regional integration. The trick is to convince the authorities on the two sides that there are benefits to shared infrastructure, which is easier for an international bridge or tarred road than it is for a market or a clinic. Given that politicians in the capital speak freely – and often loosely – about the benefits that regional integration will bring, reminding them during a festival helps ground the fine words in local realities. Where relations between neighbouring governments are cordial, this is relatively unproblematic. But where there is latent tension or a lack of consensus about priorities, festivals can help keep the lines of communication open. Festivals also enable actors to voice concerns about the daily management of the border. The most obvious concerns relate to excessive restrictions on mobility as people seek to trade, attend schools or visit relatives. The demand for bribes and harassment are also a recurrent source of complaints. At festivals, politicians enter the terrain of traditional authorities and are expected to listen to what is presented to them with as much good grace as they can muster.

In these myriad ways, festivals become part of the border management complex. The authorities may request the cooperation of chiefs in dealing with smuggling, even as the latter demand that customs authorities tackle corruption. Moreover, while it is an unwritten rule that politicians should not comment on what happens in a neighbouring country, festivals force politicians to discuss practical concerns in a more holistic way. This can include simple interventions such as permitting vehicles from one country to visit markets on the other side. Allowing vehicles to pass without checks on festival days creates a precedent of sorts. Normalizing such flows illustrates that so much of the everyday regulation is of doubtful utility.

In often quite banal ways, therefore, practical governance is forged in real time. During the 1970s and 1980s when relations between Ghana and Togo were at their most tense, border festivals could not be staged. What prevailed was a monologue about security and smuggling conducted between the state agencies themselves. Since the mid-1990s, border communities have managed to insert their legitimate needs into the equation and to expand the range of actors who are empowered to speak – both literally and figuratively. Festivals also create a forum in which complex and contentious issues can be raised and then relayed back to a much larger audience in both countries and abroad – through social media, print media and television.

Between 2020 and 2022, which is when most of our fieldwork was conducted, the management of the border was a heated issue. In the year leading up to the December 2020 election, the Ghana government tightened surveillance at unofficial crossing points, ostensibly in order to prevent Togolese nationals from enlisting for the new ‘Ghana Card’ and voters’ register. Cross-border voting has been a long-running controversy (Adotey Reference Adotey2020; Raunet Reference Raunet2019), and whenever the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been the incumbent, the border has been physically closed on polling day. But in 2020, the ratcheting up of surveillance was planned well in advance of the polls. As fate would have it, the border needed to be formally closed on both sides in March 2020 as a response to the Covid pandemic. Additional officials were drafted in to enforce the closure and notionally to secure the integrity of the election. Although cargo trucks could continue to use the official entry points, subject to testing, small-scale traders and border populations were officially prohibited from crossing. This was a major source of grievance because it seemed to presage a return to the early 1980s when the border was closed for extended periods.

We turn now to the distinct ways in which recent border dynamics have shaped the stagings of Agbamevoza and Godigbeza.

Histories and border settings

In Agotime and Aflao, the histories of the emergence of the border in situ diverge in significant respects. The Agotime, who are the largest of the Adangbe subgroups east of the Volta River, were corralled within the borders of German Togoland during the first colonial partition (Nugent Reference Nugent2019: 138–9). After World War One, the division of Togoland between Britain and France also entailed the partition of Agotime. Around two-thirds of the villages and most of the land were deposited in French territory, including one of the four oldest Agotime settlements that existed at the end of the eighteenth century, Zukpe. The other three – Kpetoe (the capital), Afegame and Adedome – were placed in British territory. During much of the 1970s and 1980s, allegations of Togolese support for Ghana secessionism and connivance in smuggling meant that Agotimes needed to be circumspect. Everyday trading and family connections mostly continued, but it was difficult to stage anything as visible as a festival. This changed in the mid-1990s when the spectre of secessionism receded and smuggling abated. Table 1 lists the most important towns in partitioned Agotime today and their involvement in the festival.

Table 1. Principal Agotime towns and role in Agbamevoza

The case of Aflao is different in that the British–German border agreement intended to place the town squarely in the Gold Coast. The adjacent German capital of Lomé was later constructed according to a familiar grid system that contrasted starkly with the more organic growth of Aflao. Outside the administrative quarter, it was populated mostly by strangers who had already begun moving into the emergent border space in the 1870s to participate in contraband (Spire Reference Spire, Gervais-Lambony and Nyassogbo2007). Nevertheless, some Aflao lands were enveloped in French Togoland in the straight section of border around Sagbado (see Figure 1). This configuration was not affected by the repartition of Togoland or independence. In the 1970s, Lomé expanded rapidly as business at the port boomed and as many northerners moved southwards in search of employment. The quarters they occupied increasingly lay to the north and north-west of the city on the lands that had been claimed by the people of Aflao and Agoué. Today, there remain pockets of Aflao people – notably at Sagbado, Sanguera, Adidogomé and Dzidjolé (Nyassogbo Reference Nyassogbo, Gervais-Lambony and Nyassogbo2007: 213) – but their farmlands have been swallowed up by the insatiable demand for urban housing. During times of acute scarcity in Ghana, Aflao became pivotal to the contraband trade. The fact that Aflao opens into downtown Lomé and is located kilometres away from the famous market area of Asigamé gave it a geographical advantage (Nugent Reference Nugent, Mikhailova and Garrard2022). Today, many who earn their income in Lomé commute from Aflao where rents are appreciably lower – fuelling a construction boom on the Ghana side.Footnote ³ Today, traders and money-changers from Nigeria and from across the Sahel have settled in Aflao, where they have their own structures of representation within the ‘traditional hierarchy’.

Figure 1. Agotime and Aflao in relation to the Ghana–Togo border

The border layout reflects a history of negotiation over border governance. The fence that the Togolese partially interpolated after 1987 was mostly stripped away by protestors in the early 1990s (Nugent Reference Nugent, Mikhailova and Garrard2022: 156–7). The subsequent opening of a pedestrian portal at Beat 9, which was a specific exception made for residents of downtown Lomé and Aflao, represented a victory for the communities most affected by the residual fence. However, during the Covid pandemic, the main border formally closed and only fully reopened more than two years later in June 2022. This affected those who frequented the rotating cross-border markets as well as traders who travelled from as far as Abidjan to source their goods from Asigamé. It also disrupted the lives of commuters, including users of Beat 9. Interviews in 2021 revealed that many whose trades had slowed down – such as masons – turned to cross-border transportation by means of zemidjans (motorcycles) or three-wheelers.Footnote ⁴ In divided Agotime, Kpetoe traders continued to ply the back routes to Amoussoukope that avoided passing either of the formal crossing points. At the Aflao–Lomé border, however, there were regular patrols along the ‘Beats’ (Akakpo Reference Akakpo2022), and Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) officers lay in wait along the many unofficial routes, where the standard bribe doubled. A common interpretation for the prolonged closure was that the NPP government was punishing the people of Aflao for returning the highest voting majorities for the National Democratic Congress (NDC). In August 2021, demonstrators marched through the streets to demand an immediate opening, led by the NDC member of parliament (MP) Dzifa Gomashie.Footnote ⁵ Around the same time, the paramount chief of Aflao, Togbe Fiti Amenya V, issued a series of public statements to the effect that border officials were extorting money from local people as they sought to go about their daily lives. Hence the closure issue had become both localized and politicized in a way that was much less true of Agotime. These different dynamics helped to shape the two festivals in quite different ways, as we will now demonstrate.

Agbamevoza: from warfare to kente

In Agotime, festival organizers grapple with the consequences of being divided by an international border. While it is taken as axiomatic that the Agotime remain one people, it has proved challenging to find a reading of a common culture that satisfies parties on both sides of the line. By contrast, it has been rather easier to keep the inconveniences arising from the border within reasonable bounds.

In Agotime, the rationale for a festival was to reunite the fragments of a polity that had left a sizeable footprint in the trans-Volta in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Nugent Reference Nugent2019: 52–78). The first efforts date back to 1978, when both countries were still under military rule. The inaugural event was organized on the Togo side and was called Avakeza, which roughly translates as the ‘festival for the ending of war’ (Nugent Reference Nugent2019: 502). This framing explicitly referenced the military prowess of the Agotime, but also resistance to the Asante invasion of the trans-Volta between 1869 and 1873. When the festival was relaunched as Agbamevoza in 1995, the primary emphasis was on kente cloth as the unique cultural product that the Agotime claim to be the originators of. The festival was intended to showcase a local industry, but it was also a conscious effort to avoid the divisiveness surrounding memories of enslavement that Avakeza had evoked.

Agbamevoza has always been planned from the Ghana side, where the initiative has resided with a combination of local intellectuals and those who live in Accra. The latter have played a crucial role in raising funds, but also in imparting a clear direction. In recent times, the festival has been launched by the Agotime Development Association of North America (ADANA) in the USA before travelling to the border. This is part of a deliberate strategy to mobilize resources from expatriate Agotimes, but it is also crucial for staking claims to a cultural product that has been appropriated by African Americans. The aspiration is to build a market overseas for high-quality Agotime kente, differentiating it from the rival product that is made in Ashanti (Kraamer Reference Kraamer2006: 61–70; Reference Kraamer, McGregor, Akou and Stylianou2022: 116–20).Footnote ⁶ The fact that Togolese Agotimes residing in France are not visible in the same way speaks to the ways in which the partition lives on in distinct patterns of international migration and expressions of cultural identity.

At Agbamevoza, kente takes pride of place. A highlight is the weaving competition in which the winner is selected for a combination of speed and skill. At the final durbar, the winner is carried aloft as a sign of distinction (see Figure 2). Needless to say, everyone who attends the durbar does so wearing their finest Agotime kente. Many of the speeches that are delivered by chiefs and invited dignitaries dwell on the importance of creating the infrastructure that will help develop Agotime kente as a distinct brand. One of the projects that remains in the planning stage is a one-stop Kente Village and a museum that will cater to tourists and traders. Although most weaving is done by men, which reflects the way weaving apprenticeships are constituted, there are some women who weave – while, of course, much of the cloth is intended for women.

Figure 2. Programme for Agbamevoza depicting the winner of the kente weaving competition

Agbamevoza comprises a week of activities that are staggered so as to afford an opportunity for different constituencies to occupy the limelight. At the start, Godigbe (dubbed the ‘Landing Day’) celebrates the arrival of the Agotime at their first place of settlement of Afegame. This helps to smooth over tensions arising from the reality that Afegame is now rather off the beaten track. By contrast, Kpetoe, which is located on the Aflao–Ho trunk road, is the economic centre, the capital and the headquarters of the Agotime–Ziope district. Arguably the second most important day of the festival is ‘Hero and Heroines Day’, which is commonly referred to as ‘the firing of musketry’. Everyone dresses in red and black, the colours of mourning/battle, which provides a sartorial contrast to the colourful kente that is flaunted at the final durbar. The highlight is a simulation of mock military engagements, in which the avafiawo, or war chiefs, take centre stage. It ends with a symbolic laying down of arms, signalling that the Agotime have embraced the way of peace. The two senior avafiawo, Nene Agbovi and Nene Akoto Sah from Kpetoe, were historically the only ones who had earned the right to be carried aloft in a palanquin, although a third has since been added.Footnote ⁷ Significantly, this privilege has never been extended to the paramount chief, or Konor, whose office is generally regarded as a German creation. The Konor may be in attendance on ‘Hero and Heroines Day’, but maintains a low profile. One of the most important features of this performance is that it tends to rotate between towns in Togo and Ghana (see Table 1). This recognizes that Avakeza was initiated in Togo, but also enables some of the smaller Togolese towns to be the focal point.

‘Women and Children’s Day’ has equally been hosted by towns on the two sides. The initiation rites for girls, dipo, is showcased, as is the important role played by queen mothers in Agotime (and Adangbe) culture.Footnote ⁸ Before the splitting of the parliamentary constituency in 2012, the MP for Ho East (and Minister for Women and Children’s Affairs), Juliana Azuma-Mensah, used it to highlight topics such as the importance of education for girls. Finally, the organizers of Agbamevoza have recognized the importance of attracting the interest of the youth. As with Tokna Massana (Cameroun/Chad) and Deza, sport features prominently, but in this case the focus is football rather than wrestling or boxing (Muñoz and Peña Reference Muñoz and Peña2024: 2, 15). A regular feature has been a tournament involving teams from towns on the two sides of the border. A beauty contest and a street party, which are normally scheduled for the same day in Kpetoe, provide an outlet for youthful revelry before the serious business of the final durbar on the Saturday.

Despite the efforts of the festival committee to embrace all sections of Agotime, the minorities who arrived in the late nineteenth century are marginal to proceedings. The Anlo section is treated as part of an existing ward in Kpetoe, while members of the longstanding Hausa community continue to be cast as strangers. They are present at the festival but do not have a defined role. The Ewe-speaking Ando who live and work on the farms are essentially invisible. By contrast, the village of Beh – which is populated by Bè people from what is now Lomé who were resettled by the Germans as head porters – has hosted the firing of musketry. This points to the manner in which the Agotime have historically absorbed some strangers, while maintaining a distance from others.

The final durbar is crucial to the perceived success of any iteration of Agbamevoza. An important measure is the participation of Agotime chiefs from the main settlements in both Togo and Ghana. It happens rather rarely that there is a completely representative turnout; this reflects the interplay of multiple fault lines. The Afegame chief has often refused to attend on the basis that the paramountcy rightfully belongs to him. For that reason, Godigbe was not held for many years in succession. Moreover, it is not uncommon for some Togo chiefs to boycott proceedings. The three chefs de canton in Togo – those of Zukpe, Adzakpa and Amoussoukope – have sometimes felt that their status has not been accorded the proper level of respect. Formally, they are equivalent to a paramount chief in Ghana, where only the Konor commands that status. The structural problem is that, within the Agotime traditional hierarchy, only the Zukpe chief is regarded as a senior wing-chief in Togo. This goes to the heart of the debate about who can rightfully be considered the defender of Agotime tradition. For those who uphold the primacy of the Konor, his customary authority stretches across the border and it is only he, in consultation with the other senior chiefs, who can modify what was fixed in the nineteenth century. For Togolese dissenters, the Konor wields chiefly authority in Ghana alone, and it is only his moral authority that carries over, given that the Togolese state has appropriated the right to elevate chiefs.

The other measure of success is the quality of the invited guests, who fall into two categories. The first is made up of prominent chiefs and queen mothers from the Volta Region, but also from across Ghana. There is an element of reciprocal recognition at work given that festivals compete for attention. The Krobo paramount chief from Eastern Region has been a valued guest of honour, reflecting the deeper historical connections between the two communities. In the festival of 2011, the festival committee was fortunate enough to secure the presence of three leading chiefs: Togbe Afede IV from Asogli (Ho), Togbe Agokorli IV from Notsie in Togo and Togbe Fiti Amenya V from Aflao (who we meet again below). The striking thing is that there has been no attempt to attract other prominent Togolese chiefs.

The second category of invitees is made up of politicians, including regional ministers and others holding ministerial portfolios in Ghana. The attendance of the incumbent president is the biggest prize of all, as is true of other festivals (Adotey and Ntewusu Reference Adotey and Ntewusu2024: 13–16). In election years, the aspiration is to attract the presidential candidates of both the NPP and the NDC. Togolese politicians are notably absent from the final durbar, even if the ambassador based in Accra has attended. When the firing of musketry takes place in Togo, the préfet (or district administrator) is likely to be present, but it is difficult to interest senior politicians in what is seen as a relatively minor set of activities. This underlines an asymmetry according to which the festival plays into the politics of recognition in Ghana, but enjoys much less prominence in Togo, where the Agotime are also divided between préfectures. The infrastructural demands that are voiced at Agbamevoza mostly concern Ghana, whereas the Togolese towns look to other forums to lobby their own government and international agencies based in Lomé. Aside from the Afegame bridge, the only cross-border initiative that currently exists is the extension of electricity to Togolese villages such as Wodome and Sarakope that are located on the border. In that sense, the festivals have ironically served to reinscribe the logic of partition.

This brings us to the other ways in which practical governance is forged through the festival. The Agotime have generally managed to make the border work for them, being a community that prides itself on trade. People have been able to attend market days on either side without experiencing the levels of harassment that characterize Aflao. The fact that the national training academy for the CEPS is located in Kpetoe has helped to forge an engagement with the lead border agency. The academy hosts the closing durbar, which has a symbolic, as much as a practical, significance. Over some years, G. K. Katamani held a senior leadership position in the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), under whose umbrella CEPS falls, while serving on the festival organizing committee.Footnote ⁹ Because the CEPS and immigration presence has been mostly confined to the official crossing points, there have been relatively few points of friction. On the Togo side, the douanes are rarely encountered, while the police have dealt with immigration at checkpoints set back from the unofficial entry points. Enforcement of the Covid border closure had some impact, but the presence of the border agencies remained relatively light-touch and traders continued to find ways of evading patrols altogether.

Because mobility was relatively unhindered before Covid, the main focus in the speeches made at the durbars concentrated on the need for improved infrastructure and support for the kente industry. When the border reopened in June 2022, there was an expectation that there would be a return to the normal festive cycle. However, a recurrence of chieftaincy conflicts brought dormant lines of fracture back into play. After the death of Nene Keteku III in June 2021, a successor was enstooled, but a rival section of the chiefly family secured a court injunction, insisting that it was their turn. Under the 1992 constitution, the Volta Region House of Chiefs is expected to resolve chieftaincy cases, but this can be a protracted process. Meanwhile, the Togo chiefs signalled their own unhappiness, arising in part from a perception that the benefits of Agbamevoza were being monopolized by Kpetoe. Typically, when the chiefs in Ghana have been divided against each other, their Togolese counterparts have stepped in to mediate. But in 2023, the chieftaincy dispute was regarded as an opportunity for the Togolese to revive something that sounded a lot like the Avakeza of old.Footnote ¹⁰ Were this to take off, Agbamevoza would be reduced to a festival catering only to the Ghanaian Agotime and its diaspora. Even on the Ghana side, Akpokope decided to launch a week-long tomato festival in August 2023, at the time when Agbamevoza should have taken place.

For the festival organizers, the fact that there had been no staging since 2019 was a cause for concern because it meant that, in a highly competitive field, momentum was being lost. The weavers made the best of things by participating in Kente Weaving Expo 2023, held under the auspices of the Volta Trade and Investment Fair (or Volta Fair) in Ho in November, but this was a poor substitute. It was to general relief, therefore, that Agbamevoza was successfully revived in August 2024 after a five-year hiatus. Crucially, chiefs from both sides of the border rallied around Nene Keteku IV despite the lack of a legal judgement.Footnote ¹¹ An acknowledgement of Togolese sensitivity about parity was reflected in the staging of the ‘Women and Children’s Day’ at Nyitoe and the ‘firing of musketry’ at Wodome. For a change, the festival posters were also printed in French and English, even if the glossy programme remained in English. Crucially, the Togolese chefs de canton attended the final durbar with their retinues, which contributed to a large turnout. There was also evidence of a willingness of the authorities to assist with getting things back on track. The bussing of participants back and forth was facilitated by the border agencies from the two sides. The constituency MP was in attendance, and the district and préfecture authorities from the two sides of the border participated in the final durbar. Although no presidential candidates came, the attendance of the speaker of Ghana’s parliament was a respectable replacement. In his speech, Nene Keteku IV spoke of the need to be internally united, while returning to the need for external support to complete the Kente Village. This neatly encapsulated two recurring themes that had dominated stagings of Agbamevoza over the preceding decades. While the two halves of partitioned Agotime existed in structural tension, the larger ambition has been to persuade government of the need for supportive infrastructure that would enable the kente industry to thrive and to support cross-border livelihoods – thereby contributing to the cultural and social integration of greater Agotime.

Godigbeza: embracing the border in Aflao

In Aflao, which lacks anything like kente, the border itself has provided the main source of livelihoods and has provided material for the framing of the festival. The first iterations of Godigbeza appear to date to the late 1960s, but it was subsequently buffeted by the unstable political dynamics. The festival is unashamedly a Ghanaian affair with all the activities scheduled in Aflao proper. However, there is an expectation that Aflao people living in Lomé will turn out to celebrate, even if they do not appear to contribute organizationally or financially. Another difference is that, whereas it is intellectuals who take the lead in planning Agbamevoza, the chiefs play a greater role in Godigbeza. In 2022, the festival was designed to make a splash because it marked twenty-five years since the enstoolment of Togbe Fiti Amenya V. The festival very much revolved around the latter, who exercised control over the planning committee through selected sub-chiefs. The citizens of Aflao living in Accra and Lomé were less visible, although no doubt they contributed some of the financial resources and publicity.

One similarity lay in the tensions that are inherent in divergent chiefly hierarchies. Togbe Fiti is a paramount chief in Ghana, while two of his sub-chiefs in Togo occupy the positions of chefs de canton: namely, those of Sagbado and Aflao-Gakli (Dzidjolé) (Nyassogbo Reference Nyassogbo, Gervais-Lambony and Nyassogbo2007: 214). Because the Aflao population of Lomé is rather small, it makes sense for them to take an active interest in what happens on the Ghana side. However, they have to tread carefully because the Togolese authorities remain suspicious of allegiances that cut across the border. In 2022, it was doubtful whether the Dzidjolé chief, Togbe Awuno Djidodjoli Detu X, would be able to participate, despite being listed as a guest of honour. This was because his responsibilities as president of the Union des Chefs Traditionnels du Grand Lomé threatened to clash with the durbar. In the end, he was able to take part, but the uncertainty underlined some of the practical difficulties of bringing the two sets of chiefs together in one space.

Another similarity resides in a distancing from other Ewe traditional festivals. Agbamevoza understandably makes no mention of Notsie because the Agotime claim to be Adangbes. ‘Godigbe’ alludes to a mythical arrival at the coast from Sudan.Footnote ¹² While it is customary to bracket the Aflao as Ewe, Godigbeza doesn’t dwell on the tradition of migration from Notsie – unlike Hogbetsotso or Deza.Footnote ¹³ Godigbeza refers instead to the equally mythical arrival of the Aflao from their supposed homeland in the Middle East.Footnote ¹⁴ Oral histories of Aflao also highlight the later arrival of many other peoples from what is now greater Accra. In fact, even the Agotime claim to have left some of their people in Aflao as they continued their migration along the coastline in the seventeenth century. Hence, for certain sections in Aflao, the focal point is more likely to be the Ga festival of Homowo than the Ewe festivals in Notsie or Anlo.

The staging of the festival follows a broadly familiar pattern to that of Agbamevoza, with different days dedicated to distinct constituencies. In November 2022, the week’s events included a health walk and a series of football matches – with a faintly surreal fixture pitting the chiefs against the border agencies. One day was dedicated to an inter-church Bible quiz, while two others were devoted to schools. There was also a day revolving around a beauty competition to crown Miss Godigbe, followed by a street party for the youth. The centrepiece of the midweek events was the commemoration of the first landing, which took the form of a procession to the beach, the pouring of libations led by Togbe Fiti, followed by fireworks and an all-night vigil. What makes Godigbeza distinctive is that the best part of a day was allocated to the Muslim community, including a durbar that was attended by Togbe Fiti dressed in a northern smock. This was a very conscious effort to write the minorities into the festival, in contrast to the erasure of ‘strangers’ that occurred in Agotime.

As in Agotime, the climax is the final durbar, which falls on a Saturday, when everyone dresses in their finest cloth (not locally woven). In 2022, it was possible to observe the event at close quarters. The durbar began with the seating of the ordinary chiefs and their retinues, followed by the arrival of Togbe Fiti and the invited guests. The raised dais for the invited politicians was located at the opposite end of the durbar grounds from Togbe Fiti, whereas lesser guests occupied the two flanks. The guest list itself was rather remarkable. Although this was a celebration of Togbe Fiti’s twenty-fifth year, no Ghanaian chief from outside Aflao was in attendance, with the exception of Nana Soglo Allo IV from Likpe, who chaired the proceedings. Most of the guests were from neighbouring countries to the east, including the chief of Anécho-Adjigo in Togo, Nana Ane Oheneko Quam Dessou XV, and the chief of Allada in Benin, Dada Kpodegbe Toyi Djigla. Moreover, two allies from much further afield were in attendance: Chief Munongo of Bayeke in Katanga (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Peter Mumia II, the Luhyia chief from western Kenya (see Figure 3).Footnote ¹⁵ By stark contrast, the sixtieth anniversary of Hogbetsotso in November 2022 hosted no lesser luminaries than the Asantehene and the Ga Mantse.Footnote ¹⁶ That festival was intended to reinforce the prominence of Anlo on a national stage. In contradistinction, the highly international orientation of Godigbeza reflected the linkages that Togbe Fiti had been investing in for some years. The Forum of Kings and Traditional Leaders had been initiated by Muammar Qaddafi in 2008, and Togbe Fiti formally succeeded to the presidency at a ceremony held in Lubumbashi in July 2023.Footnote ¹⁷ By positioning himself on a continental stage, Togbe Fiti was in effect subverting the national framing of chiefly hierarchies in Ghana. Given the fraught relationship between Aflao and Anlo, dating to British attempts to insist on the latter’s paramountcy across the southern Volta, these manoeuvres had a much deeper historical resonance.

Figure 3. Godigbeza poster depicting guests of honour in 2022

In 2022, there was a very obvious political edge to Godigbeza. The two principal guests of honour were the sitting president, Nana Akuffo-Addo, and his opposition rival and former president, John Mahama. As it happened, there was to be no meeting of the heavyweights because Akuffo-Addo was attending the World Cup in Qatar, and chose to send the minister of the interior, Ambrose Dery, to represent him. Mahama accepted the invitation and received a rapturous welcome as he walked around the durbar ground to greet the assembled participants. NDC colours were everywhere and individuals roamed around the grounds collecting money – seemingly not for the next festival, but rather for the political party.

In a departure from the standard formalities, the microphone passed directly to Mahama because, as he explained, he had to leave early to attend another durbar in Brong-Ahafo. Promising to spend the entirety of the next festival in Aflao, he gave a short speech that struck all the right notes. He referred to Togbe Fiti as his outspoken ‘brother’ whose invitation he had to accept even though it came very late. He also alluded to Aflao as the most important border town in Ghana and insisted on the need to address the poor state of the roads and to construct a proper market to complement those of Lomé. Nana Soglo similarly praised Togbe Fiti for his fearless stance in favour of reopening the border. By stark contrast, the crowd talked over the speech that Dery made on behalf of the president, in a very obvious snub. In his own speech, Togbe Fiti returned to his criticism of the border closure and the harassment of people seeking to make an honest living. He specifically took up the case of Muslim money-changers who had been arrested at the border two weeks before.Footnote ¹⁸ His explicit criticism later forced Dery to issue a public statement, explaining that the government had been forced to take action to prevent the depreciation of the currency – which is an excellent example of how politicians can be forced to engage.Footnote ¹⁹ No less striking was Togbe Fiti’s expression of opposition to the creation of a separate immigration jurisdiction at the Akanu–Noepe joint border post adjacent to the town of Dzodze. This should be viewed in the light of a running grievance against the decision to route the cargo passing along the Abidjan–Lagos corridor through Akanu–Noepe. A decision that was ostensibly taken to avoid the undeniable congestion in Aflao and downtown Lomé was interpreted as an effort to reward Dzodze, the home town of successive NPP regional ministers, and to punish Aflao. Freight forwarders had resolutely resisted pressure to relocate to Akanu–Noepe, and any attempt to downgrade the immigration post at Aflao was widely regarded as part of the same machinations.

Importantly, the claims making at Godigbeza went much further. As is usual, the speeches were punctuated by displays of drumming and dancing and cultural performances of various kinds. The striking difference from Agbamevoza was that Sahelian ‘strangers’ were invited to perform a display of horsemanship. In his speech, Togbe Fiti made a point of highlighting the positive contribution of Muslims and other ‘strangers’ to the improvement of the town, stating: ‘Aflao is a very big community that contains many ethnic groups that are foreigners. Almost all the citizens of ECOWAS countries are in Aflao.’Footnote ²⁰ Whereas the NPP government depicted immigration as an existential threat, the message to the absent president was very clear: the strength of Aflao lay in its willingness to embrace the spirit of regional integration and to eschew narrow and divisive nationalism. Whereas the NPP draws most of its support from the centre of the country, and tends to cast border regions as anomalous, Togbe Fiti was making a powerful statement about the cosmopolitanism and vibrancy of the borderlands.

The celebration of enduring ties with the people of Togo and Benin was equally a riposte to the government narrative. Togbe Fiti insisted that these were rooted in deep historical connections between peoples along the coastline running east from Aflao:

This went back to the contention that Aflao had much closer connections to the peoples of Benin than with the Ewe peoples who traced their links to Notsie:

The underlying assertion was that, while Aflao nested within the borders of Ghana, it was not bounded by the country in a socio-cultural sense. While the peoples of Ho and Anlo made much of their cross-border connections to Notsie, this framing posited an altogether different set of meaningful relationships. Moreover, by welcoming settlers from across the Sahel, and validating their claims to local belonging, a clear challenge to the government’s conceptualization of citizenship was laid down.

In 2023, it was decided to keep the festivities to a minimum. In August, Togbe Fiti and his chiefs chose to participate in Dunenyoza, a joint festival that rotates among the Bè, Agouényive and Aflao settlements of Lomé.Footnote ²² Patronizing another festival took pressure off the need to host a large event in Aflao and it reinforced the connections to people in Togo. It was also the turn of an Aflao settlement, Adidogomé, to host it, and Togbe Awuno Djidodjoli Detu X played a key role in the proceedings (Anonymous 2023; Nyassogbo Reference Nyassogbo, Gervais-Lambony and Nyassogbo2007). A scaled-down version of Godigbeza was later shelved because of coastal flooding – which highlighted the failure of the two governments to manage the environment challenges of the border lagoons. Despite the election context, Godigbeza was cancelled once again in 2024, seemingly for want of funds. Whereas chieftaincy conflicts had previously scuppered festival plans in Agotime, there was greater consensus between the Aflao chiefs. However, Aflao had a less well-oiled machine for raising finances than in Agotime, where the diaspora in Accra and abroad have been proactive even when the chiefs are at odds.

Festivals, cultural codification and border governance

In this article, we have argued for the importance of festivals in shaping border configurations, with a focus on two exemplars on the Ghana–Togo border: Agbamevoza in partitioned Agotime and Godigbeza in Aflao. We have argued that, while they share many attributes of traditional festivals more generally, they also embody their own specificities. On the one hand, the conscious effort to inculcate a shared sense of culture and history is constantly disrupted by the myriad ways in which borders magnify differences. Hence, the border has to be repeatedly unmade in the minds of the participants and officials alike. On the other hand, because festivals constitute moments of exception, they enable concerns to be articulated publicly and thereby help shape border governance.

At the same time, we have demonstrated how things have panned out very differently. In Agotime, it has proved relatively easy to invoke a shared sense of history, but it has been much more difficult to define what constitutes being Agotime. Most Agotimes do not speak Adangbe, in part because the polity historically absorbed many different peoples. The decision to place the accent on weaving targeted a local product with cultural cachet – which can only grow with the recognition of kente by UNESCO as Intangible Heritage at the end of 2024. But the focus on kente also rekindled a perception that Kpetoe benefited disproportionately. In Aflao, by contrast, the innovation has resided in taking its unique border location and turning it into a pitch for cosmopolitanism and transnationalism.

When it comes to practical governance, Agotime people have managed to turn the border to their advantage without attracting too much unfriendly attention from the agencies on either side. The siting of the CEPS academy in Kpetoe has helped sustain a broadly productive engagement with the border agencies, which is visible during Agbamevoza. In Aflao, the border has served as a resource for border traders and transporters, while the opening of Beat 9 was a victory for commuters in the adjacent communities. But the downside has been a higher concentration of officials and correspondingly greater extortion. Whereas Agbamevoza has been all about attracting official support for the kente industry, the last iteration of Godigbeza in 2002 focused on ending harassment and the withdrawal of plans to re-route cargo away from Aflao. With the victory of the NDC in the December 2024 elections, there are hopes for a return to a more harmonious engagement. In both cases, festival organizers aspire to host President Mahama in 2025 and to remind him of the promises previously made.