Accra, April 5, GNA - Mr Andrew Awuni, Deputy Minister of Information, has urged residents and the people of Northern Ghana to eschew divisive politics and stick together as a people for their advancement. He said, "those of us from the North cannot afford the luxury of divisive politics, because we have peculiar problems, which calls for unity and harmony amongst us".

Mr Awuni made the call when he inaugurated the National Union of Kusaug Students (NUKS), at the University of Ghana, Legon at the weekend. He noted that Northern Ghana was faced with grave socio-economic problems, adding that the luxury of divisive politics would only go compound the problems there.

Mr Awuni: "Let us be focused on what unites us as a people," the forthcoming elections, notwithstanding.

He said: "In casting your votes, you should be thinking of what is good for our people rather than supporting a certain group of politicians to come into power.

"Let us do well to put our political differences aside and allow the things common to us, especially our background to be a uniting force that drives us to seek to fight as a team for the advancement of our area and our people," he said.

Mr Awuni urged Northerners, who had come to the cities for education, to always go back home and contribute their quota to the development of the North, saying: "Do not allow education in the cities to be the route of escape for you."

The Deputy Minister observed that while most educated Northerners had landed properties in the major cities like Accra, Kumasi and other places, they had no such properties in the North.

"It is important for each of us not to think of ourselves as insignificant to the North because most of our fathers are illiterates and they are looking up to us as the light and the leaders of advancement in the North," he said.

In a speech read on behalf of the Bawku Naba, Asiri Abugrago Azoka II, Paramount Chief of Bawku Traditional Area, he urged the learned to educate the people to avoid violence during the forthcoming elections and observed that this was not the first time an election was to be held in the country.

He said there was need to build bridges among the various ethnic groups in order to banish or minimize conflicts and promote development. The NUKS is made up of Kusaug Students Unions in all the five State Universities, Polytechnics and second cycle institutions.

It was established to bring the Kusuag students studying outside Kusuag Traditional Area together to find common ways of contributing their quota to the development.

The Union undertakes such activities as community awareness creation on health and sanitation issues and also organizes remedial classes for students in the area.