Rawlings grabs chieftaincy title in Wa

Former President Jerry John Rawlings was on Saturday afternoon enskinned a chief of Gbagrepie by the Paramount Chief of Wa Naa Fuseini Seidu Pelpuo IV.

It was in appreciation of his meritorious contributions towards the development of the Upper West Region during his reign as president and even after leaving office.

According to the kingmakers, there was no opportune time to confer on him a chieftaincy title, than when he is in the region to commemorate the 38th Anniversary of June 4 celebrations under the theme “Restoring the Values of Probity, Accountability and Truth in Contemporary Governance”

In his acceptance speech, the former president expressed his appreciation to the Wa Naa, other traditional leaders and Queen Mothers for the chieftaincy title

“Quite frankly it is just too high; I do not deserve this but will not turn it down coming from honourbale people like you. It is only people of honour who can recognize the same qualities in others. I have maintained my dignity and integrity. If this is meant to be a reward, I thank you very much from the bottom of my heart. But as I said what it symbolizes is indeed very important, we all need to put our heads together to solve the stony problems. I will join your highly experienced traditional leaders to examine some of these issues and to see how quickly we can preempt and resolve them from denegation into stress and tension that leads into conflicts. It is a problem I cannot solve alone”, he emphasized.

He commended the people of the Upper West region for being peace-loving and appealed to them to remain as such so that others learn from them.

“Others take cues from you and you must maintain your sense of decency”, he added.