Northern chiefs urged to come together and seek peace

Wungu (NR), Oct. 22, GNA - A traditional ruler of Wungu, a farming community near Walewale in the West Mamprusi district on Friday called on all chiefs and opinion leaders in the three northern regions to come together and use their experience to solve conflicts problems in the area.

Wunaba, Alhaji Sulemana Saaka, paramount chief of the Wungu traditional area made the call when the Northern Regional minister, Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface paid a day's visit to the community. The Minister is on a familiarization tour of the West Mamprusi district to inspect development projects and to acquaint himself with the situation in the rural communities to see how best the government could help solve them.

Wunaba Alhaji Saaka said the three regions were considered the most poverty-stricken in the country and expressed worry that there was no unity among the people to enhance total development. He mentioned the Dagbon issue in particular saying, "The Dagbon problem is not only a problem of Dagombas. It is a problem of all northerners and a headache to some of us, we need to reconsider our lifestyles and come together as one big family and resolve the conflict once and for all".

The chief commended the government on the full implementation of the FCUBE programme, which now made it possible for many parents in the rural communities to send their children to school. He, however, appealed for improved facilities such as tarring the roads in Wungu, assisting the Walewale Secondary/Technical School with boarding facilities, water and other infrastructural development to improve standard of living in the area. The Regional Minister, Alhaji Boniface said conflicts in the north were depriving the people of development projects and that NGOs and other private individuals were refusing to invest in the north because of the conflicts.

He said the rest of the country was seeing Dagbon as the north but not Dagombas and stressed the need for all northerners to bring ideas as to how conflicts in the area could be resolved. Alhaji Boniface assured the chief and people of continuous development to reciprocate the confidence Ghanaians reposed in NPP government by voting to return it to power.

The Minister earlier commissioned a 958- million cedi guests house put up by the West Mamprusi district assembly, paid a courtesy call on the chief of Walewale and inspected on-going projects at Janga, a farming community near Nasia.