The Paramount Chief of the Sirigu Traditional area in the Kassena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region, Naba Roland Atogumdeya Akwara III,has appealed to factions of the Doba-Kandiga land dispute to bury their differences and allow peace to prevail.
The Paramount Chief who made the appeal during the annual health walk which brought together a lot of community members and the nearby communities including Doba and Kandiga said they were all one family since they intermarry.
He lamented that anytime he drew the attention of the Municipal Assembly to pressing needs of the people, the excuse they often gave was they spent such development project money on the Doba-Kandiga conflict.
He said that many of the bridges in the area particularly Kandiga–Sirigubridge, Zorkor–Sirigubridge, Paga-Sirigu bridge, Bolga-Sirigu had all collapsed, cutting most of the communities off.
He appealed to the factions to consider the development of the area, see themselves as one people, and use dialogue instead of violence that often lead to the Assembly spending huge sums of money for peace keeping instead of spending it on developmental projects.
He told the factions to be mindful that future generations would not be happy with them if they continued to engage in such acts that stifled the development of area.
Speaking on the annualSirigu health walk, the Paramount Chiefindicated that health was very key to development and pointed out that this prompted his outfit to buy into that idea when a representative of the Sustainable Medical Missions (SMM), an international medical training and empowering organisation based in the United States, Mr Thomas Lerewanu, sold the idea to the traditional council.
He said apart from the annual health walk which began four years ago, the NGO had partnered with the traditional council to end open defecation through sensitisation and putting up sanitation facilities.
MrLerewanu explained that the mission of SMM over the years had been training and supporting indigenous healthcare and faith-based leaders in underdeveloped communities to treat Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and other endemic conditions affecting the poorest community members.
He mentioned various tropical diseases including Trachoma, Onchocerciasis, Leprosy, Trypanosomiasis, Dracunculiasis, Buruli Ulcer, Hookworm, Schistosomiasis, Lymphatic Filariasis, Ascariasis, Trichuriasis and leishmaniasis; as some of the tropic diseases SMM targets through its initiatives.
The occasion which attracted other stakeholders including NGOs, teachers and students from the Sirigu Senior High School, Assembly Members and opinion leaders was also used for clean-up exercise and football matches.
FROM SAMUEL AKAPULE, SIRIGU
