Dagbon peace, will be high point of my achievement this year – President
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said the high point of his achievement this year would be the restoration of peace in the Dagbon Traditional Area, after a 15-year long impasse.
He said the best Christmas gift he could give to the people of Yendi and Ghana, this year, would be the enskinment of a new Ya Naa, ahead of the celebration of the Damba Festival.
“This will be the crowning achievement of my first year as President of the Republic… and I am going to do everything that a President can do to make sure that we get there.”
The President said this on Saturday when he paid separate calls on the Regent of Dagbon, the Kampakuya Naa, Yakubu Abdulai Andani; and the Bolin Lana, Mahamadu Abdulai, at Yendi, on his three-day tour of the Northern Region.
He said the issue at play was “how to apply the customs of Dagbon with the relevant compromises, to resolve the crisis.”
President Akufo-Addo recounted the role played by the Former President, John Agyekum Kufuor, in setting up the Committee of Eminent Chiefs, responsible for fashioning out an acceptable formula for the resolution of the crisis.
The Eminent Chiefs include the overlord of Mamprugu, the Nayiri, Naa Bohagu Abdulai Mahami Sheriga; the Overlord of Gonjaland, the Yagbonwura, Tuntumba Boresa I; and the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Chairman of the Committee, who, according to President Akufo-Addo, had been doing a yeoman’s job.
“Whatever formula, whatever understanding they come to, amongst the parties to the Dagbon conflict, will have the full, unequivocal support of my government. I want to reassure you that I don’t have an interest in the outcome of the accommodation,” the President said.
“I want to repeat, I am not an Andani, and I am not an Abudu. Not only am I not an Abudu, nor an Andani, I am not even a Dagomba. I have no interest, other than the peace and security of Dagbon.”
“Any official of mine, who is seen to be impeding the resolution of the matter, according to custom, will have me to play with,” President Akufo-Addo assured the Kampakuya Naa.
He further gave the assurance, in response to a request made by the Imam, who offered the opening prayer at the Kampakuya Naa’s Palace that “the Regent has nothing to fear from me. He will be very well looked after in the process. His father was my friend, and it will not be right that I do not treat his son right. He [the late Ya Naa] will not forgive me.”
By the same token, President Akufo-Addo pleaded with the Andanis and Abudus to accommodate whatever missteps that occur in the process to find a lasting solution to the problem.
“If we are committed to the end of the journey, and there are missteps along the way, we should find a way to accommodate it, so that we do not jeopardise it,” he said.
The President, thus, appealed to all involved in the Dagbon matter to “work together, and ensure the necessary accommodation and compromises to bring this 15-year old crisis to a conclusion.
“The people of Ghana will see Dagbon for what it is – a historic state of our nation – and we want to see it rise again,” he said.
Source: GNA