Prampram chiefs Persuade counterparts in Ningo

to join
new District Assembly

…finger NPP as the cause of their crises

By CCL Reporter, Prampam

The
Prampram Traditional Council on Thursday called on the chiefs and people of the
Ningo Traditional Area to re-consider their decision to boycott the
newly-created Ningo-Prampram District and its activities and them in developing
the newly created district. They, however, laid the cause of their crises on
members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Addressing a Press Conference at
Prampram in reaction to one an earlier held by the Ningos on Saturday, June 16,
Nene Atsure Benta III, Mankralo of Prampram, said, the decision by the Ningos
was rather unfortunate, and therefore implored them to join hands with them to
make Ningo-Prampram District assembly grow from strength to strength.
In that said Press Conference, The chiefs of Ningo accused First Lady, Mrs. Dr.
Ernestina
Naadu Mills with Chief of Staff, Henry Martey Newman, all natives of Ningo-Prampram,
and MP for Ningo-Prampram, Enoch Teye Mensah, of allegedly using their
influence to get Prampram made the capital of the newly carved Ningo-Prampram
district.
This, Nene Benta described as
unfortunate a statement attributed to the Mankralo of Ningo, Nene Kanor Atiapah
III, who was alleged to have said that he would expel his chiefs, assembly
members and citizens, if they partook in government activities new district.
“A chief has no legal right to expel his
citizens under the 1992 constitution, since it offered freedom of association
under chapter five. Rather, he said, a chief should liaise with government to
bring development to his area”, he said.
He said it was not right for Nene
Atiapah ,who is also the Acting President of the Ningo Traditional Council, to
have said the area had not benefitted from Mr. Enoch Teye Mensah, Minister of
Water Resources, Works and Housing, and currently the sitting
Member of Parliament (MP) for the area.
Nene Benta said the Ningos had
benefitted from a number of projects initiated by the MP, which he catalogued,
include the connection of Ningo to the national electricity grid; the
construction of schools and dams; the donation of computers to their schools;
the awarding of scholarships to school children from Ningo, and the provision
of tractors for farming in the communities.
He pointed out that the chiefs and
people of Prampram had no quarrel with the Ningos for fighting for their own
district, but reminded them that “districts are not created out of poverty,
deprivation and under-development,” as they stated in their press conference.
Nene Benta pointed out that it was a
wrong impression created by the Ningo Press Conference that the current
government had developed Prampram to the detriment of Ningo.
He stated that the
Prampram Police Station, for example, was the second to be
built in the Gold Coast in 1814, while the Health Post and Water Company were
constructed during the regime of Dr Busia of blessed memory.
Education and Religion, he continued,
were ancient institutions in Prampram, and that the people of Ningo and Kpone
even schooled in Prampram.
His question then was: Where lies the
claim of the Ningos that they ceded land for Prampram just to come and overtake
them?
Concluding, Nene Benta queried that if
the Ningos claimed to be pace-setters, how come that all the departmental headquarters
were located in Prampram.
He said, legally by the passage on March
15, 2012, of the Legislative Instrument LI 2132, Prampram is the capital of the
Ningo-Prampram District Assembbly.
For that reason,, he said, they should
find solace in the adage that in unity lies strength, and that united, the
entire people in the district would stand, but divided they would fall.
The Prampram Mankralo, therefore, urged
the chiefs and people of Ningo to rescind their decision to break away from the
new district, since by so doing, it would not do anybody any good, but would
only send the clock of progress in the district backward.