A couple of days ago, rainstorm hit parts of Tamale rendering some of the inhabitants homeless. One person at Kalpohin in Tamale North was killed and properties worth thousands of Ghana Cedis were lost.
I personally got in touch with Tamale North and I was told that 32 houses were affected at Kalpohin alone. Nyanshegu also in Tamale North had about 28 houses affected.
The victims were heard on the media complaining about their situation and the need for urgent support to be made available to them. In their response to the urgent call for support, the Metropolitan office of NADMO in Tamale, the Regional office and the National office made it clear that their stores were empty and there was nothing that they could immediately do to help the victims apart from writing their names down.
What this meant was that ‘grapple with the situation alone’! I must say that as an inhabitant of the Tamale North constituency and somebody who contested elections to represent the constituency in parliament, I was very angry with the response of the very people paid to help on occasions like this.
NADMO, we must all be reminded, is one of the state agencies that over spent its budgetary allocation last year by monstrous sums of money. This is the organisation that said its stores were empty and could not therefore support people who needed help immediately.
Tamale has four constituencies and three out of the four constituencies were won by the government that said their stores were empty. The fourth constituency was won by an Independent Candidate who was by NDC breed and has therefore since decided to give his support to the NDC in parliament. So technically all the Tamale MPs are NDC MPs.
The NDC is taking the people of Tamale for granted and I will explain. If the NDC government is able to get people to generate 600,000 dollars to send pastors to tour Jerusalem which is not urgent, why can’t the same political party and government raise at least 100,000 dollars to support the very people who are the reason they are in government???
When Haiti, a country far away from Africa had problems, the NDC under late President Mills was able to donate colossal sum of money to support the Haitians.
Under the NDC government, a musician by name Chris Brown who is notorious and was once arrested and sentenced for assaulting his girl friend by name Rihanna, was paid 1Million dollars to come to Ghana to smoke “wee” also known as Indian hemp live on stage during his musical performance in Ghana recently and even encouraged Ghanaian youth to go smoking!
Somebody who is now working in the office of the President once spent 1.6Billion Ghana Cedis on Christmas hampers on non existing journalists to do budget education for the NDC, it was claimed.
Then this same government is not immediately willing to search for relief items for rainstorm victims in Tamale North. I have a suggestion for the government: Redirect the money you are to use on the tourist pilgrimage to Jerusalem to provide relief items for your suffering people.
I have read the Bible very well and even have two certificates; intermediate and advanced certificates in Bible Studies and can say here that, Jesus would have kicked against the propaganda Jerusalem Pilgrimage if he was to choose between providing relief items for a suffering people and embarking on a journey to Jerusalem for the purpose of tourism.
Whilst the government of the NDC has so far failed to support the people of Tamale North and other places in the region, I want to humbly use this medium to appeal to NGOs and other benevolent organisations to come to the aid of the people.
May I also suggest to the Four Tamale MPs to hold a joint press conference to solicit for support for the very people who voted for them into Parliament. They should make a personal “Pilgrimage” to the Jubilee House to appeal to the President who is also from the North to urgently come to the aid of the populace.
I rest my case.
Akilu Sayibu
Email: Akilu.Sayibu@live.uwe.ac.uk