President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
For several centuries, Bawku, like Kumasi, Techiman and Tamale, has been a cross border trading post. So, it has harboured people of various communities and backgrounds in the Savannah and Sahel as well as Middle Belt – all doing business in crop, livestock and other commodities.
The town’s importance for Ghana, our immediate neighbours and the sub-region as a whole, cannot therefore be ignored.
That is aside of its traditionally quiet and serene environment, until recently when the poison of chieftaincy conflicts and partisan politics began to pervade the community, culminating in what is becoming a social nuisance that is refusing to go away.
Local politics
Unfortunately, there is a lingering worry about how the activities of local gangs, political forces and chieftaincy factions feed into the scale of instability in the northern regions.
And, here, we cannot deny the fact that those in the centre of the controversy include businessmen, lawyers and the political class, many of whom are indigenes of Bawku.
That is why we do not need to ‘sit’ comfortably on recurring reports and culture of elite indigenes trafficking of guns from the south to the north, without a decisive effort on the part of the security agencies in putting down the nonsense that holds other residents hostage.
Of course, we also know that we have agents of partisan politics with connections to equally partisan skins who occasionally muddy the waters and create a situation of fear and panic in the area. That situation leaves women on farms and kids in schools fleeing into neighbouring communities for safety when these acts of insanity are visited on the communities.
We saw that in 2024; and it appears that its embers, which are deep-seated because of the strong influence of the alleged perpetrators, continue to smoulder on the slightest provocation.
Very worrying
What is more worrying is the fact that a lot of opportunities for the development of the area are going down the drain as a result of this and other conflicts in the northern part of the country.
To think that there are a host of NGOs working in the northern regions, as part of the holistic effort to help improve lives and livelihoods, only for a clan of Rottweilers to fracture the peace in the area is unthinkable. It is equally sad that, while government breaks its back to design and implement projects and programmes that benefit ordinary residents, some lunatic politicians would conspire with local chieftains to set the clock of progress back because of mercenary or parochial considerations.
Since the Nanumba-Konkomba and Dagbon conflicts, governments from the time of Jerry Rawlings to the current administration have made enough interventions that should encourage traditional authorities and opinion leaders to sustain peace in the north to facilitate government’s industrialisation efforts.
A huge responsibility therefore falls on these leaders to stand up and be counted in building and sustaining peace in the regions and communities in the north in positioning the area as an actor and beneficiary in the oncoming industrialisation efforts.
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