LETTER FROM ABIDJAN
Fifteen years after his death, Michael Jackson is back in Ivory Coast… or almost. He is a double of the American superstar, the Chinese Wang Yonghua, known as “Wang Jackson”, who landed on Friday June 21 in Abidjan. After being received on Saturday by Eugène Aka Aouélé, the president of the Sud-Comoé regional council, he will follow in the footsteps of the “king of pop”, to Krindjabo, in the department of Aboisso, in the south-east of country, where he is expected on Tuesday for the celebration of the 15e anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death.
Read our 2009 article: Michael Jackson, a life between success and scandals
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The love story between the pop star and the Ivory Coast dates back to 1992. At the height of his career, the singer decided to discover his African origins and carried out a DNA test, which told him that he came from the kingdom. Sanwi, a place of sale and deportation of slaves during the slave trade, close to the border with present-day Ghana.
In February of the same year, he therefore went to Krindjabo, the capital of the kingdom, where the traditional authorities recognized him as the heir to the royal family and consecrated him prince Amalaman Anoh, in reference to the first king of Sanwi. The ceremony is widely publicized, and the small kingdom of Sanwi enjoys unexpected international notoriety.
Also read the column | “The history of my DNA follows the wake of slave ships”
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Symbolic funeral and sacred tomb
Unexpected and ephemeral. It was not until 2009 and the death of Michael Jackson that the village of Krindjabo once again welcomed the cameras of the international press. Because the king of Sanwi, Amon N’Douffou V, demands the body of the superstar to bury him on his land, in accordance with tradition. The American embassy refuses, but the village organizes a symbolic funeral for “the child of the country”.
In accordance with his princely stature, his tomb is declared sacred and its location kept secret. Followers of memorial tourism, in particular Afro-descendant Americans who go to the kingdom of Sanwi to discover places marked by the history of slavery, cannot therefore go there to pay homage to the former “king of pop.”
Read also | In Ivory Coast, the town of Krindjabo attracts Afro-descendants in search of identity
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A problem which the Reverend Pastor Marcel Kouamenan, who heads the Jackson Legacy charitable foundation, intends to remedy by having a memorial erected in Krindjabo with a six-metre-high statue of the singer. The first stone must be laid on June 25, in the presence of a delegation led by Marcel Kouamenan and Wang Jackson, special guest of the Reverend Pastor.
“The delegation will go to greet the king of Sanwi, explains Olivier Kattie, spokesperson for the sovereign, then she will go under the krindja [l’arbre emblématique planté au centre du village]. The same ceremony as in 1992, when Michael Jackson came to Krindjabo, will be reproduced in his honor. The double will be dressed in the same princely attire as Michael Jackson, and he will be enthroned as Michael Jackson was. »
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