Ex-Regional Minister calls for end to conflict in the North

A former Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Abdulai Mahama Baba, has bemoaned the endless conflicts in the four traditional set-ups in the region and urged the people to strive to change the trend.

He said the Dagbon, Mamprugu, Gonja and Nanumba traditional areas had not been spared with the chieftaincy, ethnic or religious conflicts, breaking out every now and then, denying the people the peace for development.

Alhaji Baba, Northern Regional Minister in the Limann Administration and now deputy programme co-ordinator of School for Life, a local NGO, was addressing the opening of a two-day capacity-building workshop organised by the Northern Region Youth and Development Association (NORYDA) for its members in Tamale on last Friday. NORYDA is a Tamale-based NGO committed to peace building and development in the Northern Region.

Alhaji Baba noted that the three northern regions are the most deprived in the country, where poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease are plaguing the people. "Instead of us fighting these problems, which are our real enemy, we tend to commit our resources to fighting our own kith and kin, denying ourselves the needed development.

Alhaji Baba therefore, urged the participants, numbering about 30, to evolve peace building and conflict prevention strategies during the workshop, adding, "You must endeavour to identify the courses of the various conflicts in the region so that you will be able to take the necessary preventive measures".

He called on NORYDA to help facilitate the flow of information to stem rumour mongering because "rumours had contributed in no small measure, to sparking off conflicts in the region."

Opening the workshop, Chief James Jamani Bakari, Vice-Chairman of NORYDA, said inter and intra communal and ethnic conflicts were rooted in history and the co-ordinate ambition of some people to scramble for traditional and political power had easily made communities in the north vulnerable to violence.

Consequently, accelerated human development programmes had faced set backs, he added. "We have to bear in mind that the various conflicts we aimlessly engage in have the tendency to blind us and make us look as if we have no competing enemies.

Our real enemies include poverty, illiteracy, hunger, and mistrust, which hinder our development", he said. Chief Bakari urged the participants to collectively fight to solve the problems.