The people of Sefwi have been pushed far to the wall and now they have no option than to bounce back. That is to say, you can cheat some people sometimes, but you can't cheat all the people all the time.
The people of Sefwi have been neglected and abandoned since the foundation of the state since the state has only concentrated on using resources from Sefwi to develop other areas of the country whilst they themselves lack development.
One may believe it or not, Sefwi is the backbone of the Ghanaian economy yet is the very area that every government that comes to power and unfortunately overlooks since independence! Is time for change and that is the change that we need no turning back brethren. Sefwi provides Ghana with most of the resources such as Coffee, Ivory, Food, Cocoa, Timber, Gold and Bauxite. Which area of Ghana can even get closer to the resources of Sefwi let alone to compare? Oh you tell us.
However we have no good schools, hospitals, roads, shopping centres etc. Upon all these resources that make the country rich, our area is the least in terms of development.
Many of our people have to travel far before you can get good education. Go to every school elsewhere in Ghana, you will find Sefwi people there studying because we don't have good schools here in Sefwi land which is very sad. The same thing applies to the hospitals. We don't have good hospitals here which results in high death rates.
Those small hospitals that we have over here are also under-resourced. They lack the requisite equipment needed for treating our sick ones there and this often result in premature deaths as people continue to die before their time. Many of our people cannot achieve their talents because we lack facilities.
For eg, no studio for our people to practice their music careers, no good field for others who know how to play football to practice and so on and so forth. Talk of the worst road conditions over here and you will have nothing to write home about. This has caused a lot of road accidents and results in some dying on their way while being conveyed to these small hospitals that we have. The poor road conditions prevent investors from coming over. There is difficulty in transporting goods and services.
What is more, because of lack of equipment in our small hospitals here, many of our people die in the course of being transferred to bigger hospitals like KATH in Kumasi and the rests. There is also the lack of professionals to find better jobs here at home which results in many leaving the area to other big cities in such of jobs.
Many of our people cannot perform well in their exams eg. JHS and SHS, because our schools lack teaching materials to teach our students. Also due to lack of infrastructure and social amenities, many good teachers don't like to come here and teach which makes the situation worst. For example, many students are studying science but don't have a laboratory, can you imagine how possible? How can one go to farm without a cutlass? Oh you tell us! These results in high rate of mass examination failures among our students. The COCOA BOARD SCHOLARSHIP which should have been given to the children of these poor farmers turn to be given to people who are not even farmers thereby depriving these our people who deserve it most.
Many of them at the end turn to be drop outs from school because they do not have any help to cushion them to pursue their dreams since the their scholarships have been taken away by those who do not deserve them. Many of our people who have little funds to invest turn to go and invest in the big cities so they can make more profit.
Even many of our chiefs leave for big cities in search of jobs. Have you seen a Ga or Ashanti chief looking for job in Sefwi? Oh there you go. People mostly visit home when there is funeral or occasions like that. Government since independence have been achieving their aim of taking the resources for free after all there is no one there to challenge us as we succeeded in driving them away from the land by not developing it. All these truth has come and is now time to turn the clock around. We have just few tertiary institutions which can't admit many of our students.
In view of all these problems, we came out with a solution of seeking for our own region. Because we dwell on the northern part of western region we can be called the WEST NORTH REGION. By getting our own regional capital, the government would have no choice than to use our resources money which others benefit from us to develop this new regional capital by choosing one of our towns; it could be any one of our towns we don't care.
By so doing, there shall be creation of more jobs in Sefwi thereby attracting others to come here and work. We shall then have good schools, hospitals, roads etc. Many of our scholars who left in such of jobs in big cities shall come back home including our chiefs. Many of our rich men and women shall come home and invest here in sefwi. With our new capital which will result in good infrastructure and social amenities, other investors shall come in and invest and many more people shall come here to work.
This will in turn improve the remaining districts as the area shall see improvement. Our people shall no more be transferred to KATH for treatment because we shall equally have a better hospital back in our new city. We shall have better schools for our students without having to travel long distance any more for education and our people shall also acquire jobs with their profession here at home.
This will encourage our young ones to study hard because they could see their senior ones acquiring work after their profession unlike the way it is now. If the Senoir could not find job after completion, what will encourage the junior to study then? This creation of new capital will not only benefit the people of Sefwi alone but rather the rest of the country as a whole. If the creation of a region doesn't help to improve development, then why do we already have some and those regional capitals are much developed than the district capitals then? Why would Dr Limman then divide Upper region into Upper West and Upper East region then?
The solution for Sefwi is the new region we are all working hard to push for. We believe this is the only way to bring real development to one of the richest parts of the country but which has otherwise been deprived of development. By so doing, it will make the people feel proud of who they are and where they come from. Not all, Takoradi been regional capital has no benefit to the people of Sefwi. Our people mostly go to Kumasi for their daily needs because is much closer to us than Takoradi which is said to be our regional capital.
Sefwi people have lived since independence without any regional capital and Takoradi doesn't favour them as a regional capital. However, if there is any regional development, it will then go to Takoradi which means the Sefwis are always SIDELINED which is not fair. That is why we are now demanding a new regional capital which can be beneficial to the people of Sefwis. Hence any development shall benefit immensely the people in that area as compared to the present situation.
This idea brought about the formation of our association called Sefwiman Development Association (SMDA). This is a non-violent association with the aim of getting Sefwi developed. This is a registered association campaigning for Sefwi to get our own region to bring better standards of living to our people as equal citizens of the nation Ghana.
We hope the government will listen and provide our request because we deserve it.
Long Live Sefwiman, Long Live Ghana!!
Thank You!!!!!
Signed:
Tony Tsina Addai, Leader
Sefwiman Development Association (SMDA)
