Thursday 4 December 2014

Lifestyle: Ghana King Living in Germany Rules His People via Skype

Meet Togbe Ngoryifia Céphas Kosi Bansah, a.k.a King Bansah of the Hohoe, an African king who doesn’t believe in old-fashioned methods of governance but prefers to live in Germany and rules his subjects via Skype.

Life made easy by technology...

The 66-year-old king moved to Germany several years ago as a foreign exchange student where he fell in love with the country and decided to live and maybe die there. King Bansah was named successor to the crown in 1987 after his grandfather – the reigning king – died. 

King Bansah was chosen over his father and older brother, because they were left handed, a trait that is considered unclean and indicative of dishonesty in Hohoe.
After his coronation in 1992, King Bansah still lives in Ludwigshafen, near Frankfurt, with his German wife Gabriele, where he runs a car repair garage and also finds the time to govern the 200,000 Hohoe people in southeastern Ghana, through Skype and telephone calls. 

  
According to reports, he even stays up late at night to rule on tribal disputes and makes sure to visit his kingdom at least six times a year. He has even secured medical aid and sends water purification equipment back home.

King Bansah, who was recently in the news for a burglary that happened in his home. where he lost items that were ostensibly hundreds of years old and worth around 20,000 euros ($25,000). “Thieves had come over the balcony on the first floor, prised the door open, smashed the cabinets and ransacked everything,” the king told the UK Times.

King Togbe Ngoryifia Céphas Kosi Bansah is said to have returned from an evening out to discover that thieves had broken in his home in Germany and made off with most of his royal regalia, including the crowns and golden chains from his grandparents.
 


Photo credit: Koenig-Bansah/VG-Maxdorf/Udo Schroeder/Wikimedia Commons/One Girl One Ghana

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