Northerners blame Britain for their plight

The Government of Ghana is being pressurised to demand reparation from the British government due to its neglect of the three northern regions during its rule.

The demand constitute the core of a resolution passed at the end of a three national congress of the BONABOTO held Bolgatanga. BONABOTO are comprises, Bolgatanga, Bongo, Nangodi and Tongo, all in the Bolgatanga District.

In the 14-point resolution read by Mr. Matthew Adombiri, the over 500 delegates drawn from the area said they took cognisance of the fact that the citizens are impoverished, marginalized, deprived and faced a hostile environment, resulting in the highest levels of illiteracy, stunned growth and lacked health and educational facilities.

They pointed out that the north was deeply bruised by the pernicious policies of “our British colonial masters by denying us access to education resulting in an over 100-year gap between the north and south, and noted with concern the absence of any policy to address the situation, particularly Ghana’s First Republic.

The delegates noted that the reason for which the northern scholarship was scheme was instituted were more relevant and valid today than before, and therefore should be reinstated in tertiary and second cycle day institutions.

The northerners are of the view that after long years of marginalisation, a special dispensation should be given to District Assemblies of northern Ghana to be allowed to allocate more funds to education than contained in the guidelines for the disbursement of the common fund.

They called on the district assemblies within the BONABOTO area, to develop incentive packages to attract and retain teachers to alleviate the acute shortage of qualified teachers.

Furthermore, the delegates noted the perennial food crisis in the area and called for a holistic approach by the government including the provision of small-scale dams for animals and watering and irrigated farming.

They regretted the lack of industries in the area and called on the government to fulfil its promise by reactivating the Pwalugu Tomato and Meat factories immediately. In order to ensure a more holistic development of the area, they called on all citizens and other development partners to be proactive by establishing schools, hotels, clinics, hospitals and small agro-processing industries.

The congress was under the theme: “Breaking the cycle of poverty, ignorance and margialisation through dialogue.”

In December last year, some Members of the country's Parliament decried the disparities in development in the three northern regions and particularly, the yawning educational gap that exists between the North and the South and called on policy-makers to help address the situation.

The north according to them has been neglected over the years, a situation they blame mainly on Ghana’s colonial masters.

The three northern regions – Upper West and East and the Northern regions occupy 41 per cent of the land area of the country with about 20 per cent of the country’s total population.

In spite of its vast agricultural and human resources, it co ntributes a mere 1.3 per cent of the total number of industrial establishment. More than 65 per cent of the people fall below the poverty line, indeed, they are among the last 10 per cent of the very poor.

The illiteracy rate of the regions currently is estimated to be about 70 per cent as against 30 per cent in the southern sector of the country. The area is reputed for its supply of skilled labour to the cocoa farms, mines, house servants, porters in the shopping centres of the south and other menial jobs that one can think of.

The low standard of education in the area dates from the colonial era when education was intentionally suppressed by the British colonial government, which by regulation limited the level of education to what was known as “standard 4.”

The aim of the policy was to produce very few semi-literates to man the low administrative positions. An aim they effectively achieved. At the time of Ghana’s independence, the north had produced only one University graduate. The first secondary school opened in 1951 with an initial intake of twenty boys with no girls. Besides Achimota, children from the north were denied admission into any other secondary school in the South.

Although, the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah did well to boost the development of education in the north, through northern opinion leaders in the late forties and early fifties, those gains were eroded by the global economic decline of the seventies and early eighties.