The Buipewura Mahama Abdulai Jinapor II, Paramount Chief of the Buipe Traditional Area, has called for sustained unity among the people of the north to collectively chart a common path for development.

He said politics and chieftaincy must not be a stumbling block for unity and love for one another especially when the north had a common enemy (poverty) to fight.

“Peace is the only yard stick used to measure the readiness for development in any environment, which we must all embrace for the sake of the future generations,” he said.

The Buipewura told the GNA in an interview in Tamale on Wednesday that the north had all that it took to remove poverty, disease and illiteracy but politics and chieftaincy conflicts had been the bane of progress.

He said what needed to be done to ensure that the north caught up with the rest of the country in terms of development was for the northern elite to commit themselves towards seeking lasting peace, unity and togetherness for the needed development of the area.

“The north would continue to remain stagnant if there is no strong commitment from the northern elite, some of who sometimes build mansions in the cities and construct huts back home which motivates others to move down south for nonexistent jobs,” he said.

He said there were lots of economic opportunities in the north that when tapped would accelerate the development of the area, which would improve Ghana’s economy and called on the political leadership to develop programmes and projects that would relocate investors to the north.

He said a lot of economic activities such as farming, aquaculture development and the existing shea nut processing factory as well as the Diamond Cement Factory located at Buipe were transforming lives and facilitating the development of the area.

He, however, regretted that investors were not making judicious use of the fertile lands in Buipe and other parts of the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions to venture into aquaculture and farming while the existing shea nut factory, established some few years ago in Buipe, had been temporary shutdown.

He has, therefore, appealed to officialdom to take measures to address problems that might have resulted in the shutdown of the shea nut producing factory, which employed a lot of people in the area.

He announced that he was ready to liaise with other traditional rulers within his jurisdiction to release land to investors as means of helping to solve the youth unemployment in the area and appealed to other traditional authorities to help ensure development of their areas.