Sitobu, who flourished around 1450, was the first Ya Na (paramount chief) of the kingdom of Dagomba in what is now northeastern Ghana which he found some time during the second half of the 15th century.
According to the oral traditions of Dagomba, he had disputed the election of his elder brother, Tohugu (q. v.), to the paramountcy which their father Gbewa had established near Pusiga, in the extreme northeast of what is now Ghana. Sitobu’s faction appears to have won; for according to the traditions, Tohugu was compelled to flee to Mamprugu, to the south. Sitobu hotly pursued him as far as Gambaga (80 mi, or 128 km, north-north-east of Tamale), where his arrival at the head of a large army caused much panic and forced the inhabitants to flee. According to legend, only one of them, an old woman, remained because she could not abandon her vast wealth, which included a large herd of cattle. Sitobu and his men fell upon these, feasting on one each day. In accordance with custom, however, Sitobu ordered that the hind leg of each cow killed be given to the old woman. The custom was not, however, observed when the last cow was killed, and when the old woman came to Sitobu to protest, he ordered his men to kill her. Her ghost is said to have haunted Sitobu who, consequently, left Gambaga for Nabare in search of someone who could exorcise the ghost. He found no help there, and therefore travelled to Savelugu, 20 mi (32 km) north of Tamale, from where, after he had firmly entrenched himself, he came to rule the less powerful people around him.
From Savelugu he sent his son Nyagse to conquer the territories of Dagbansab’la (the “Black Dagbamba”). So extensive were Nyagse’s conquest that Sitobu concluded that unless these territories, as well as those conquered during Gbewa’s rule, were partitioned, there would be endless succession disputes after the deaths of himself and Tohugu. Sitobu therefore divided the territories into two. All the lands to the east of Namburugu became the kingdom of Mamprusi (Mamprugu), under Tohugu’s rule, whilst those to the south became the kingdom of Dagomba, under the rule of Nyagse, whom Sitobu declared his successor. It is said that Nnantombo, Sitobu’s younger brother, disapproved of the division of land and the appointment of Nyagse, and therefore founded his own kingdom, that of Nanum (Anglicised as Nanumba), to the south of Dagomba.
A. A. ILIASU
