Dagbon Plans Chaos

AS THE DEADLINE for submission of all illegal arms and ammunitions in Dagbon elapsed last week without a single weapon being retrieved, intelligence gathered by the Gye Nyame Concord suggests that some members of the various ethnic and political groupings in Dagbon may be planning to use this week’s 7th year anniversary of the gruesome murder of Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II to unleash violence in the community.

Usually reliable sources in Dagbon say some indigenes plan to mark the day in grand style by taking advantage of any security lapse to attack opponents and score what they perceive to be factional and political victory.

In the end, some of our people are mindless of the social and economic consequences; a source hinted this paper Thursday.

Information gathered by this paper suggests that some members of one of the factions in the conflict have already drawn a list of about 50 potential targets in the event of unrest.

Among the personalities Concord gathered could be attacked during the 7th anniversary is one Alhaji Prince Alhassan Baako, a former Managing Director of Zoomlion in the Northern region, who was transferred to Kumasi but is believed to have resigned his post from the sanitation company.

The name of one Alhaji Rufus Iddi, a prominent Dagomba and former Regional Chairman of the NPP, who is said to live in the Aboabo part of the Tamale Township has also come up, sources say.

There are suggestions that some residents have hatched a plan to use street processions on the principal streets of Dagbon as an opportunity to attack any of the potential targets seen on the road that day.

In spite of the stern warning issued by new Northern Regional Minister, Steven Sumani Nayina, to residents of Dagbon to return all illegal ammo being kept in their private bunkers, no arms had been returned by residents by the close of the one-month deadline on March 17th.

The month-long amnesty appeal was issued by the Minister on February 17, this year. Yet days after the expiration, no gun, according to Northern Regional Police Commander, Peter Baba, had been retrieved.

Regional Minister Steven Sumani Nayina told the Concord that he was in a meeting when reached Sunday afternoon, asking the paper to call him later. Efforts to speak to him later on his next line of action proved futile as calls to his mobile phone did not go through.

Dagbon has been a source of concern to security personnel following the hording of large caches of arms smuggled into the community.

The late Ya-Na Yakubu Andani was murdered during the celebration of the Bugum festival in a three day exchange of gunfire in March 2002 between Abudus and Andanis, resulting in what the Wuako Commission set up to find facts on the issue said were “the deaths of thirty (30) people including the Ya-Na, injuries on many others, the burning of thirty-six (36) houses and the destruction of the Gbewaa Palace.”

At the time “unfettered acquisition of local and sophisticated arms or weapons over a long period of time by both the Andani and Abudu Families and/or their agents and the inability of the Security Agencies to prevent/retrieve same” was identified as one of the causes of the conflict.

Significantly, the Chief and people of Tamale barely two weeks ago celebrated their annual “Damba” festival in pump and pageantry without any violence, with the Dakpema Naa Mohammed Alhassan Dawuni (chief of Tamale) calling on the government to implement agricultural policies that would attract the youth into farming and help reduce unemployment in the country.