Houphouët-Boigny also continued to invite traditional, or ethnic, leaders to participate in both party and government at the local level so that he could maintain constructive ties with the traditional elite. Nevertheless, he was not always able to extinguish all micronationalist sentiments. For example, the Agni of Sanwi claimed that their kingdom had become part of Côte d'Ivoire without their consent. In December 1969, the Sanwi king called for the kingdom to secede and led a separatist revolt. Government troops swiftly suppressed the rebellion...

Most representatives of East Atlantic cultures are Akan peoples, speakers of languages within the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo language family. Many are descendants of eighteenth-century migrants from the kingdom of Asante. The largest Akan populations in Côte d'Ivoire are the Baoulé, who make up nearly 15 percent of the total population, and the Agni (Anyi), who make up only about 3 percent of the total. Much larger Akan populations live in Ghana and Togo. Akan societies are generally organized into farming communities but have a history of highly centralized chiefdoms and kingdoms tracing descent through maternal links. In the region that is now Côte d'Ivoire, they did not form large empires like the Asante of Ghana.