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Opinions of Tuesday, 29 January 2013

Columnist: Gbedeka, Tongunenyo

Do Not Impose Alhaji Dzinzdu Bubey On Central Tongu

Tongus are a group of people that inhabit the banks of the river Volta. These tribal groups are the Dorfor, Vume , Fodzoku, Torgome, Volo, Battor, Mepe, Mafi, Bakpa, Fieve, Sokpoe, Tefle, and Agave. During the reigns of our late Prez., Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the Tongus used to have three districts. However, after the overthrow of that government, the whole area was brought under one district which Sogakope was the capital. This was a situation Tongus were not happy about until former Prez. JJ Rawlings introduced the current district assembly concept which saw the carving out of North Tongu District from South Tongu District in 1988 with the capital at Adidome and Sogakope respectively.
However, after this creation, the North Tongu was still large and spans about sixty six kilometers along the banks of the Volta River and about forty kilometers wide and sharing boundaries with Akatsi and Adaklu District Assemblies to the east, Dangbe East and Ningo Prapram Districts Assemblies to the south, Dangbe West and Asougyaman to District Assemblies to the west and Ho West District Assembly and Ho Municipal Assembly to the north. This is clearly not a small district. The people of North Tongu District were on the government demanding a split of the district into three, so that they would have Central Tongu, North Tongu East and west Districts, with their capitals at Adidome, Battor Dugame and Juapong respectively. But in 2004, when Prez Kuffour decided to create districts, he only created two constituencies out of the vast North Tongu constituency then. He made Juapong the constituency centre for the North Tongu constituency and Adidome remained the constituency centre for central Tongu. Prez. Kufour’s failure to take the bull by the horns created a situation in which both the people of Dufor and Battor laid claim to the district capital.
In 2008, when NDC came to power, it was decided by the people of North Tongu at a stakeholders conference held in International Needs School at Adidome that an appeal should be made to the government to grant them two more districts with the capitals at Battor and Juapong with Adidome retaining the old capital. However, when the districts were created and announced, the two constituencies in the Districts were only confirmed as districts with the other constituency centre sited at Juapong which should have automatically become the district capital moving to Battor Dugame as the district capital for the newly created North Tongu District. The people of Dusor which comprises Dorfor, Torgome, Fodzoku and Volo were not happy which generated a whole lot of hullabaloo in the area which even Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwah was blamed for being part of that scheme.
The people of Central Tongu who are the old assembly but had a new name were expecting that the DCE, Hon. Alhaji Dzidadu Bube who hails from Aveyime Battor in the newly created North Tongu district would have moved to that district for a new DCE to be appointed for Central Tongu. But to our surprise, the people of Central Tongu were told that Alhaji Bube should remain with us until the election was over. This was not a palatable news to us, but for the fact that there were issues being raised by the people of Dorfor, Torgome, Volo and Fodzoku about the sending of the district capital from Juapong , which is better placed, planed and resourced to be a district capital to Battor, we decided not to add to the woes of the government about agitations that were coming from different parts of the country.
The people of Central Tongu Constituency has perception that people appointed as DCEs from North Tongu Constituency acted against the interest of the Central Tongu Constituency in terms of sitting developmental projects.except They did their best to locate all the capital intensive development projects in that part of the district. When Alhaji Dzinadu Bube was appointed, we thought his administration will be better, but it turned out to be the worse.
What is paining us about Alhaji Bube is that the people of central Tongu were instrumental in his appointment, backed by Hon. Joe Gidisu, the MP and Madam Felicia Logo, a founding Member of the party in the district. Alhaji Bubay took advantage of the absence of Hon. Joe Gidisu who was so pleased with his new position as Roads and Highways minister and had forgotten about his constituency and district entirely, to move all development projects to the North Tongu constituency of the district, leaving the central Tongu to her fate. For the fact that he hails from the North Tongu District but remained as the DCE for central Tongu district, he has taken advantage of that and is pushing things meant for the central Tongu district to the North Tongu district. I do not want to provide these evidences here now. But, what I want to say is that, though I do not want to appear threatening the president, he should immediately relocate him to the North Tongu district which he hails from. We shall be happy having an acting DCE, if it is the Regional Minister than having him still as the DCE. We could not understand why new DCE’s were appointed for all the newly created districts but that of North Tongu was left out for Alhaji Bube should be imposed on (US) the people of central Tongu. Even, him being here is a constitutional illegality that is being perpetuated, because, the letter that appointed him stated in clear terms that he has been appointed the DCE for North Tongu District. Therefore, now that the North Tongu districts has moved to Battor, he should also go there and leave us alone and spare us the dubious things he is doing here. The Prez must know that he swears to uphold and defend the constitution at all time.
As for Hon, Joe Gidisu, his pleasure for his new post which made him to forget about the district altogether, leaving Alhaji Bube to have field day will be treated in another forum. I hope, his constituency secretary who thinks he was on top of his writing best will come again to defend him. We think central Tongu deserves better.

Tongunenyo Gbedeka