BAWKU NEEDS PEACE

HAVING in the recent past emerged from two major disasters — severe drought and unprecedented floods — the least anybody expected from Bawku and its environs was peace and freedom that would have enabled both the citizens and residents to pick up the pieces, rebuild and regain what had been destroyed or lost.
Therefore, the renewal of hostilities at this time, marked by the free use of heavy weapons by people involved in the communal clash, Kusasis and Mamprusis, arson and senseless killings, has dealt a serious blow to the needed peace and security in the area.
For instance, as of the time of going to press, several people had died following the hostilities and many people were being treated in hospital for various degrees of injury, some houses had been burnt and the curfew which was lifted a week ago re-imposed from 9.00 a.m. to 7.00 a.m. until further notice.
Stories abound of some businesses and shops closing down, workers fleeing from the Bawku municipality under police escort for fear of their lives, while students make it to their schools also under escort.
Certainly, such a situation needs urgent action and the government has acted fast by deploying police and military personnel there to bring the explosive situation to normalcy.
The conflict between the Kusasis and the Mamprusis started way back in 1958 when a Mamprusi Chief, Naba Salma Yerimiah, was destooled and sent into exile in Togo.
The Kusasis enskinned Naba Abugrago Azoka I, but after the 1966 coup d’etat, Azoka was removed and a Mamprusi, Naba Tampure, enskinned as chief of the area.
This process of destoolment and enskinment of chiefs continued with different governments until the present chief of Bawku, Asigri Abugrago Azoka II, was enskinned.
These periods of destoolment and enskinment of chiefs from these two ethnic groups had brought with them intermittent violent conflicts.
In December last year, the hostility between the two ethnic groups resurfaced, claiming many lives. Many people were killed in the Bawku municipality and Garu in the Garu-Tempane District.
The King of the Mamprugu, Nayiri Naa Bohugu Mahami Abdulai Sheriga, resolved to personally intervene in the protracted and internecine conflict by consulting the National House of Chiefs, the elders and sub-chiefs in his area to help find a lasting solution to the problem.
The Nayiri cautioned politicians and the youth in the Northern and Upper East regions to refrain from any reprisals and to rise above parochial interests to help heal the deep-seated hatred between the Mamprusis and the Kusasis.
President J. A. Kufuor, in March this year, held a crucial meeting with some chiefs, opinion leaders and politicians from the Upper East Region to find an amicable solution to the conflict in Bawku.
After the President had met the two feuding factions at the Castle, Osu, it was everybody’s expectation that they were going back home to put their act together and stop the fighting for the government to do what it could to start the reconstruction of the area.
The people of the Bawku municipality should take cognisance of the fact that the area, more than anywhere else in the country, needs peace to develop because it is one of the most deprived in the country.
The huge sums of money the government spends to deploy the military, the police and other auxiliary agencies to the area to keep and maintain peace could be used to provide basic social amenities for the people there.
The conflict in Bawku is affecting the region and the country as a whole and it is time the people there realised this and stopped the fighting for peace to prevail.