The landmass of British Togoland stretches from Bawku East district in the Upper East region and borders the Volta River up to the Gulf of Guinea.īening (1983) notes that the original boundary between the British colony of the Gold Coast and protectorate of Togo included not only the Ewe of the Keta and Peki districts in territory but it also divided the Mamprusi, Dagomba and Gonja states as well. The Ewe area in the British controlled territory was formally constituted into the Trans-Volta-Togoland region in 1952 to enable effective administration as a single group (Prescott, 1963 p5). Both Togoland under the British protectorate and Togoland under the French protectorate were under supervision of the Trusteeship Council of the League of Nations (now the United Nations). The British administered their mandate as an integral part of the Gold Coast Colony whereas the French kept theirs administratively separate from Dahomey (Benin) and Upper Volta (Burkina Faso). During periods of war temporary alliances were formed amongst the Ewe groups, but these were dissolved in times of peace.” The Anglo-German boundary, which lay between Lomé and the Volta River divided Eweland into two protectorates namely British Gold Coast Colony and German Togoland. Prescott (1963) notes that before the European intervention “the Ewes were politically divided into about 120 subtribes lying between the centralised military kingdoms of Abomey and Ashanti. The division of the former German colonies of Togoland, Kamerun (now Cameroun) and Tanganyika (Great Lakes Region) into British, French and Belgian Mandates after World War I was one of the most important boundary changes that took place. History and Makeup of Western TogolandĪfrica’s international boundaries were delimited and subsequently demarcated by European States following the 1884 Berlin Conference (Prescott, 1963 p1). However, do these arguments really stack up against the historical record? The purpose of this article is to analyse the recent calls by the HSGF in light of the existing historical narrative to address the following: (1) the history of Western Togoland (2) political associations in the Togoland (Unificationists vs Unionists) and (3) the plebiscite and matters arising.Ģ. Thus, they are right in calling for a secession to form a new sovereign state. That is, Queen Elisabeth II did not incorporate Western (British) Togoland in the Act establishing the Gold Coast (now Ghana). They also claimed that “…world historical documents had revealed that Western Togoland was a state and not a territory of Ghana.”įundamentally, HSGF claims that although residents of the Western Togoland voted in 1956 to become a union with the Gold Coast (now Ghana), the union has not been formally established by way of a unionized constitution to date. the Western Togoland were plebiscite citizens in Ghana and not until a declaration was made on, the people will remain an appendix to the former Gold Coast (now Ghana). ” According to the leader of the group, “…. On 17 August 2016, my attention was drawn to a news article published in the Daily Graphic, which inter alia, mentioned a group known as The Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF) based in Ho in the Volta Region of Ghana “agitating for the restoration of so called Western Togoland as a state to declare independence for Western Togoland on.
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