His name is Henk Otte. He is a middle-aged unemployed man on welfare in the Netherlands. He lives with his wife and two children in an Amsterdam housing project. He seems completely, absolutely ordinary. And he was, at least until 1995. That year, while visiting West Africa with his wife, his life changed radically.
During that visit, leaders told Otte that they believed he was the reincarnation of their deceased tribal chief. Following seventeen years without a leader, the Ewe tribe, made up of more than 100,000 people, believed that Otte should be their king.
And now he is.
In Holland he is Henk Otte. But in Africa, he is “Togbe,” or “king.” His arrival is greeted with celebration. Throne-bearers carry him through masses of excited subjects. Drums play, dancers spin, and the focus of all their adoration is their king, who wears a crown and lives in a specially-built home. Several television documentaries have told the story of this improbable king. In fact, it’s hard to imagine a less-likely king.
Of course there was one….
Grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Worked for years at a regular job, just like everyone else. Then one day, about the time he was thirty, he gave up his old job and started preaching. Wandered all over the place doing it, even though he had no real training. Finally ran into some trouble with the authorities for claiming that he was, you guessed it, a “king”. He managed to offend his own people, the local authorities, and many more. They finally killed him for stirring up trouble. A pretty unlikely king.
Kings rise to the throne in one of three ways. Most are born into that role, and receive it by inheritance. Some take it by force. But a few are made king because people decide to make them king and serve them. That was the case with Henk Otte. And that is the case with Jesus Christ. He serves as king only of those who have chosen to name him as king. His subjects have all chosen to let him rule.
Whom have you chosen as your king?
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Review of documentary film “Togbe” by Tim Merrill:
Henk Otte is quite a character. A middle-aged, unemployed Dutchman living on disability, he also happens to be – once a year, anyway – a regally attired chief in the West African country of Ghana.
1982 was when Henk met Patty, a pretty woman from Mepe, a village of 300,000 near the Togo border. They married and settled in Amsterdam. Some years later, Henk was involved in a near-fatal construction accident. But his fortunes took a turn for the better when he and Patty went on a trip to her hometown: Henk was declared the reincarnation of Patty’s grandfather. Soon after, Henk found himself with a new title: Togbe Ferdinand Gapketor II. As one observer says in the wonderful documentary “Togbe”: “It’s a gender-reversed fairytale.”
As a link to the Europe’s white world of resources and funds, Henk is a valuable asset to Mepe. As Chief of Development, he works tirelessly to collect donations, medical supplies and other benefits, and generally raise the profile of this impoverished village. But he’s also, for all his genial goofiness, a controversial figure. Even the reincarnation angle is contested by some: the citizens of Mepe (or at least the tribal chiefs who speak for them) don’t officially believe in it. They want to be perceived as a progressive people, though Christian missionaries have long had their way with the place – “forced their religion on us,” in Henk’s words. One of the film’s great oddities is a montage of Mepe’s storefront signs: “Vote For Jesus,” “Everything By God Motors,” “Jesus Never Fails Enterprises,” “Be With The Lord Metal and Gas” and best of all, “God Is Greater Than Any Problem Fashion Center.”
“Togbe” is a fast-paced and fascinating portrait of one man, a funny sort of man at that. But the film also provides a look at a country, a people and a culture that we see all too little of. Ghana is an entire world which we know – and, quite frankly, care – almost nothing about. In sometimes grim, always poor surroundings, the people of Mepe wear riots of color in their traditional dress, with music and dancing ever present. They find joy where they can, and they are rightly proud. They enrich Henk, and he them.
The story builds to a celebratory parade in the streets of Mepe, with Henk and his princess of a wife marching among the people. Another observer, an African journalist, remarks that the look on Henk’s face is often a mix of “confused bewilderment and spiritual contentment.” An unusual combination – but not a bad way to be.
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