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Bawku holds stakeholders’ engagement forum

PThe Bawku Inter-Ethnic Peace Committee (BIEPC) is initiating a number of measures to roll out a peace map to help promote lasting peace in the Bawku area and its environs.

The Manager of the Belin Wusa Development Agency (BEWDA), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Shaibu Abubakar, disclosed this at a day’s stakeholders’ engagement forum held in Bawku in the Upper East Region last Saturday.

Mr Abubakar explained that his outfit would strengthen and enhance the relationship among stakeholders, including the BIEPC, the security, the assemblies and religious bodies, among others, so as to help ensure lasting peace in the area.

He said the BIEPC would continue to engage political parties, students of second cycle institutions, women and youth groups, since they were the most active and vulnerable when it comes to conflicts.

“The BIEPC will continue to sensitise the public as well as engage traditional authorities of the various ethnic groups on the need for peaceful co-existence,” the manager stressed.

Mr Abubakar urged all the stakeholders to play their respective roles very well so as to help ensure that lasting peace returned to the area to help boost the economy of the Bawku Municipality and its environs.

The stakeholders who acknowledged that although peace had returned to the area and people were going about their businesses without any problem, and underscored the need to work towards ensuring a lasting and absolute peace in the area.

They deliberated on the need to solicit support, collaborate and network to sustain the peace, and to also purify the land, so as to foster peaceful co-existence among the people, noting that an amount of GH¢50,605 would be needed to carry out activities including blood cleansing in the area.

The committee members indicated that aside the above amount, it would need a top up of about GH¢73,105.00 to cover preparatory activities, including visiting the communities to identify abandoned farmlands, engagements with community leaders, among others.

The Committee hinted that the burial of the “okro stick” would be another paramount traditional practice that would be carried out to provide safeguards to peace, particularly where blood was spilled during the conflict.

They appealed to the residents in the Bawku municipality and its environs especially the two feuding factions to collaborate with the committee to sustain the peace in the area to help promote development.

With funding support from Star-Ghana, the stakeholder’s forum attracted members of the BIEPC, the security agencies, traditional and religious leaders, heads of the decentralised departments and the media.

FROM SAMUEL AKAPULE, BAWKU

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