Samp­son Nan­ton

Deputy Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor

samp­son.nan­ton@cnc3.co.tt

In 2019, a Trinidad and To­ba­go mar­tial artist set out on what he be­lieved was a per­son­al jour­ney of sur­vival, re­new­al and cul­tur­al dis­cov­ery. Sev­en years lat­er, that path has led him across the At­lantic and deep in­to the tra­di­tion­al pow­er struc­tures of north­ern Ghana, where he is now prepar­ing to be for­mal­ly coro­nat­ed as a chief in the Mam­prugu King­dom.

For Chief Mba Naa No­biri, the sto­ry is not sim­ply one of trav­el or cul­tur­al study. It is, as he de­scribes it, a se­quence of spir­i­tu­al di­rec­tives, an­ces­tral call­ings and lived ex­pe­ri­ence that has tak­en him from the Caribbean to the dense in­te­ri­or to Kwakoe­gron in Suri­name and ul­ti­mate­ly in­to the cus­to­di­an­ship struc­tures of one of West Africa’s most his­toric tra­di­tion­al states.

“My jour­ney be­gan in 2019, to be ex­act,” Mba Naa No­biri told Guardian Me­dia.

“Some­times when life hits you, you have to find a way out, a so­lu­tion to the prob­lems. Be­fore COVID-19 came, I had a sit­u­a­tion in my fam­i­ly and that kind of spi­ralled every­thing out of con­trol - but in con­trol. From the chaos, or­der man­i­fest­ed.”

“I went to Suri­name and there be­gan my stud­ies un­der the Ma­roon cul­ture, the Bushi­nen­gué, as we call them. While I was there, through my cer­e­monies, I was giv­en the di­rec­tives to con­tin­ue my jour­ney in Ghana.”

What fol­lowed, he says, was not a con­ven­tion­al aca­d­e­m­ic or cul­tur­al ex­change, but an im­mer­sion in­to in­dige­nous spir­i­tu­al sys­tems, tra­di­tion­al ini­ti­a­tion, and what he de­scribes as a con­tin­u­ing an­ces­tral in­struc­tion.

In Suri­name, he spent years en­gag­ing with Ma­roon com­mu­ni­ties—de­scen­dants of Africans who es­caped en­slave­ment and es­tab­lished au­tonomous set­tle­ments in the in­te­ri­or rain­forests. There, he al­so en­tered the world of the Win­ti, the spir­i­tu­al en­ti­ties or per­son­i­fied en­er­gies of na­ture—a spir­i­tu­al sys­tem root­ed in West African cos­mol­o­gy.

“The sys­tem in Suri­name fol­lows the Akan, the old Akan tra­di­tion. It was more ma­tri­ar­chal. We are led by the gods, we call them Win­tis,” he ex­plained.

“Win­ti means air.”

But the tran­si­tion to Ghana, he says, re­quired adap­ta­tion to a dif­fer­ent tra­di­tion­al struc­ture.

“In Ghana, we fol­low the pa­tri­ar­chal sys­tem. The gods are more in­ter­act­ing from an ex­ter­nal ba­sis.”

That shift would even­tu­al­ly place him with­in the or­bit of the Mam­prugu King­dom in north­ern Ghana, where he en­coun­tered tra­di­tion­al lead­ers and be­gan par­tic­i­pat­ing in cus­tom­ary rites that would cul­mi­nate in his se­lec­tion for en­skin­ment.

A call that came in cer­e­mo­ny

Chief Mba Naa No­biri traces one of the most sig­nif­i­cant turn­ing points in his jour­ney to a rit­u­al wash­ing cer­e­mo­ny in Suri­name.

“I was tak­ing the med­i­c­i­nal wash­es. In Suri­name, we have these big basins and the el­ders would place like 33 dif­fer­ent plants in­side,” he said.

“While I was wash­ing, the mes­sage came to me: Your jour­ney con­tin­ues in Ghana on your fa­ther’s side of the fam­i­ly.”

That mo­ment, he in­sists, was not metaphor­i­cal.

Ini­ti­at­ed as a Basi (leader/chief) un­der the Ku­man­ti clans, the spir­i­tu­al di­rec­tives from the Win­tis were lit­er­al and ab­solute: his des­tiny lay in West Africa.

“The Win­tis are what we call the gods. It is not an ab­stract ex­pe­ri­ence. It’s some­thing that we take very lit­er­al­ly.”

From Suri­name, he re­turned in­ter­mit­tent­ly to Trinidad and To­ba­go while con­tin­u­ing his work as a capoeira prac­ti­tion­er and cul­tur­al ed­u­ca­tor.

But what he de­scribes as “vi­sion” rather than es­cape was shap­ing his tra­jec­to­ry.

“I wouldn’t say it was an es­cape. I would say it was vi­sion. I need­ed to see how to bet­ter my­self.”

Path to Ghana and

the Sa­cred En­skin­ment

By 2024, he had ar­rived in Ghana, where he met tra­di­tion­al au­thor­i­ties in Mam­prugu. It was there, he says, that his for­mal jour­ney in­to chief­tain­cy ac­cel­er­at­ed.

He not­ed that nav­i­gat­ing the spir­i­tu­al land­scape of the moth­er­land re­quired im­mense dis­cern­ment and dis­ci­pline. It al­so re­quired sur­vival; dur­ing his ini­tial vis­its, he evad­ed death af­ter a se­vere bout of liv­er poi­son­ing, re­cov­er­ing through what he cred­its as the in­ter­ven­tion of his fam­i­ly and the gods.

Un­like the ma­tri­ar­chal sys­tem of Suri­name, Ghana’s tra­di­tion­al gov­er­nance is pa­tri­ar­chal. Late last year, his ded­i­ca­tion caught the at­ten­tion of the trib­al el­ders.

Af­ter tak­ing his Sha­ha­da (de­c­la­ra­tion of faith) un­der Sheikh Ahmed Ab­ul-Faid Ab­dul­lahi Maikano Jal­lo, head of the Ti­janiyya Su­fi Or­der—re­flect­ing the deeply in­ter­wo­ven na­ture of Is­lam and tra­di­tion­al cul­ture in north­ern Ghana—Mba Naa No­biri re­ceived a sa­cred sum­mons.

He was called for “en­skin­ment.”

“The en­skin­ment is dif­fer­ent from the en­stool­ment,” Mba Naa No­biri ex­plains, clar­i­fy­ing a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion.

“En­stool­ment is lit­er­al­ly the place­ment on a stool, which is com­mon in the south. How­ev­er, en­skin­ment utilis­es sa­cred an­i­mal skins that are blessed and placed for the chief, or naa­ba, to sit up­on, en­dowed with the bless­ings of the an­ces­tors.”

“The word Mba means fa­ther,” he says.

“You are en­skinned to rep­re­sent Ma­ma Africa. My of­fi­cial ti­tle is Gam­ba­ga Mba No­biri. Gam­ba­ga rep­re­sents the palace of Mba Gam­baRaana, the ruler of Gam­ba­ga, who is my fa­ther in this tra­di­tion. By be­ing his leg—No­biri—I rep­re­sent him by go­ing out in­to the di­as­po­ra and re­turn­ing with pos­i­tive feed­back, busi­ness, and cul­ture.”

De­mys­ti­fy­ing the fear

of African her­itage

While in north­ern Ghana, Chief Mba Naa No­biri im­mersed him­self in the cul­tur­al and re­li­gious en­vi­ron­ment of Mam­prugu, in­clud­ing learn­ing Mam­pruli and en­gag­ing with Is­lam­ic and tra­di­tion­al struc­tures that co­ex­ist in the re­gion.

For many Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, en­gage­ment with African cul­ture be­gins and ends on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day. Mba Naa No­biri views this sea­son­al ap­pre­ci­a­tion as a symp­tom of his­tor­i­cal con­di­tion­ing root­ed in fear.

“It’s all about fear—false ev­i­dence ap­pear­ing re­al,” he says.

“And that fear be­gins from those who were brought here force­ful­ly from their homes. The transat­lantic slave trade did its job; the first thing they did was re­move our names and our lan­guage. We per­pet­u­ate that in our homes by think­ing it is not im­por­tant to know who we are.”

He points to oth­er eth­nic groups in Trinidad and To­ba­go who open­ly main­tain proud con­nec­tions to their an­ces­tral lan­guages, at­tire, and his­to­ry, con­trast­ing it with the hes­i­ta­tion many African-de­scend­ed cit­i­zens feel.

“We are afraid to give our chil­dren their in­dige­nous names. We don’t even know the rites of pas­sage to at­tain the cor­rect name that gov­erns their star for their life. But if you want truth, look to the past.”

To the youth of Trinidad and To­ba­go, whose pri­ma­ry ed­u­ca­tion­al ex­po­sure to Africa is the trau­ma of the slave trade, Mba Naa No­biri of­fers a mes­sage of recla­ma­tion.

“They fo­cus on that el­e­ment in the movies. But they don’t talk about Yaa As­an­te­waa, or Han­ni­bal of Carthage. We don’t talk about Mansa Musa. We don’t know about our his­to­ry, or the wealth of Africa that the whole world is fight­ing to get. It takes be­lief in one­self.”

The new Dubai:

Bridg­ing transat­lantic trade

Mba Naa No­biri does not see his chief­tain­cy as mere­ly cer­e­mo­ni­al; it is, to him, a con­sti­tu­tion­al and eco­nom­ic gate­way. Backed by his lo­cal team, he is es­tab­lish­ing North­east De­vel­op­ment Hold­ings to spear­head transat­lantic trade routes be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Ghana.

The ini­tia­tives cur­rent­ly on the ta­ble in­clude the es­tab­lish­ment of a bond­ed ware­house and an in­dus­tri­al com­plex in Ghana to fa­cil­i­tate the ex­change of com­modi­ties like co­coa, shea but­ter, and moringa.

He notes that this aligns with broad­er bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions, such as those echoed by gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials re­gard­ing di­rect flight routes to West Africa.

“Ghana is right now ripe,” Mba Naa No­biri mar­vels.

“My broth­er went to Dubai a few times and was so ex­cit­ed. To me, Dubai was this fu­tur­is­tic coun­try. But when I saw what is hap­pen­ing in Ghana, I told my chief, ‘Man, this is the new Dubai.’ Look at the trade and how the gov­ern­ment un­der­stands that in­fra­struc­ture must ben­e­fit the Ghana­ian peo­ple.”

A jour­ney still un­fold­ing

Chief Mba Naa No­biri is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to Ghana in Ju­ly for his coro­na­tion, where he will com­plete the cer­e­mo­ni­al as­pects of his in­stal­la­tion, in­clud­ing vis­its to sa­cred sites in Gam­ba­ga and sur­round­ing ar­eas of the Mam­prugu tra­di­tion­al state.

He de­scribes this next stage as both spir­i­tu­al and strate­gic.

“From the en­skin­ment we now move in­to coro­na­tion, and that opens not on­ly cul­tur­al path­ways but busi­ness path­ways as well.”

Look­ing back on the jour­ney from Trinidad and To­ba­go to north­ern Ghana, he frames it as some­thing larg­er than per­son­al achieve­ment.

“One af­ter­noon, I was just con­fused, man. I looked in­to the mir­ror and said, ‘God, if you are re­al, show me who I am.’ That be­gan a spi­ral ef­fect.”

For him, the an­swer came not in one place, but across con­ti­nents, cer­e­monies and tra­di­tions that now con­verge in a Ghana­ian palace where a Trinida­di­an is prepar­ing to take his seat among African tra­di­tion­al au­thor­i­ties.

And for the di­as­po­ra watch­ing from the Caribbean, he be­lieves the mes­sage is sim­ple: iden­ti­ty is not on­ly re­mem­bered—it is ac­tive­ly re­claimed.

“Noth­ing hap­pens by co­in­ci­dence,” he con­cludes.

“When we tap in­to that be­lief in our­selves and say, ‘I know I can get this done,’ then what is hap­pen­ing now in Ghana, and in the di­as­po­ra, is change. And that change can­not hap­pen with one per­son—it can on­ly hap­pen as a col­lec­tive.”