Kufuor tells Dagbon Gates to rise above division

Accra, April 6, GNA - President John Agyekum Kufuor has entreated the two royal gates of Dagbon, the Andanis and Abudus, to rise above division and to ensure that ambition was not allowed to destroy their common heritage.

He said they were indeed the same people, who traced their roots to a common ancestry and for that matter it was important they did not permit partisan politics and other aberrations to wreck the authority, customs and traditions of the area.

"If we destroy Dagbon, we are destroying Ghana", President Kufuor said when he received the Report of the Committee of the Three Eminent Chiefs, he appointed in 2002 to help to find traditional solution to the protracted Dagbon chieftaincy dispute at the Castle, Osu, on Thursday. Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Asantehene, Yagbonwura, Bawa Doshie and the Nayiri, Naa Boshagu Mahama Abdulai Sheriga, the members of the Committee, accompanied by representatives of the two Gates presented the Report, widely seen as the road map to peace, which captures the traditional processes to be followed and agreements reached on the burial of Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II to the President.

It outlined the breakthrough on the thorny and sticky issues of the burial of the Ya-Na, the traditional position of Ya-Na Mahamadu Abdulai and the Regency.

President Kufuor told the parties to the dispute to continue to co-operate with the Committee in the search for durable solution, saying they must live by what was possible and fair and to let fellow feeling underpin the peace efforts.

He gave the assurance that the Government would not take sides in the way forward, to restore trust and confidence among the Gates. President Kufuor praised the Eminent Chiefs for working so hard, their display of statecraft, the show of enormous wisdom and for sparing no effort, at times sitting deep into the night, to push the peace process forward and to reach agreements acceptable to both sides. He also expressed appreciation to both the Andanis and Abudus for the compromises made and said the State through the Government would give Dagbon the fullest support to accord the Ya-Na Yakubu Andani a fitting burial.

The Government, he promised would guarantee adequate security and to ensure that justice would not be compromised.

Otumfuo Osei Tutu said the Dagbon crisis was a purely traditional matter and must, therefore, be kept out of politics.

"We want to plead with everybody, the politicians and the media to keep out of this for when they create confusion they would leave the people there to suffer their fate."

The Asantehene noted that there used to be too much suspicion among the people of the two Royal Gates but said they had now succeeded in building confidence and trust in each other.

He said the Committee had made it clear to the two Gates that it would be an indictment on them if their generation destroyed the rich traditions of Dagbon.

Otumfuo Osei Tutu on behalf of the other members of the Committee thanked Mr Boniface Abubakar Sadique, the Northern Regional Minister, and his predecessor, Mr Ernest Akobour Debrah, now Minister of Food and Agriculture, for their role and efforts towards finding a lasting peace in Dagbon. 06 April 06