GIVE PEACE A CHANCE AT BAWKU (Page 15)

Story: George Ernest Asare, Kumasi

THE Chief of the Kusauk Community in the Ashanti Region, E. Azumah Ndagu, has appealed to all factions in the Bawku Traditional Area embroiled in the Bawku Chieftaincy dispute to use dialogue to address all outstanding issues.
He said they must not destroy lives and property as was witnessed recently and added that using a social and scientific approach to address the issue was the key for sustainable peace to prevail in the traditional area, thereby enhancing peaceful co-existence and productivity.
In a press conference held in Kumasi at the weekend to underscore his point, Chief Azumah Ndagu pointed out that using violence as a tool to settle disputes the world over had never yielded any positive results, and, therefore, expressed dismay at the disruption of the relative peace being enjoyed by the entire traditional area.
“ Bawku Traditional Area has suffered so much in terms of instability and underdevelopment since the era of the last Governor-General of the Gold Coast in the 1950s and we believe that most of the inhabitants of the traditional area are now sick and tired of this monstrous canker which seems to have political undertones and erupts seasonally,” he stressed.
In a statement issued to the press during the conference, Chief Azumah Ndagu said the violence at Bawku, coming weeks after the recent heavy flooding that claimed many lives and property in the area, was unfortunate and unproductive because the issue had already been addressed by the Supreme Court.
He said with the ruling of the Supreme Court, “ we suggest that one way of solving the issue is for the government to come out openly with a White Paper to back the decision of the Supreme Court and put the whole matter to rest.”
Recalling the events in South Africa during the apartheid regime where the White Minority used illegitimate means to perpetuate their rule, Chief Azumah Ndagu pointed out that the obnoxious apartheid regime only gave way to a democratic regime through dialogue and not violence. He, therefore, saw no reason why the use of dialogue should not be the guiding principle, so far as the Bawku chieftaincy dispute was concerned.
He wondered why the Bawku Traditional Area, which boasts of numerous intellectuals, politicians, and individuals of high social standing and who had achieved much in life would continue to suffer violence through chieftaincy disputes while prominent citizens “ sit on the fence and allow short-sighted, ignorant and colonial-minded confusionists to misguide and create mayhem for innocent, peace-loving citizens”.
Stressing his point, Chief Ndagu said it was time such high-profile people from the traditional area teamed up to help solve the problem.
“We the citizens of the Bawku Traditional Area should have realised by now that no wars but jaw-jaw has achieved the much-needed peace since the 1950s, hence the need for a collective and socio-scientific approach to the problem by all stakeholders.”
He also made a passionate appeal to all the factions to exercise restraint “in the midst of these difficult times because violence has never been known to have permanently resolved any issue successfully. It rather exacerbates the problem, resulting in the destruction of precious human life, hard-earned property, businesses and stagnates development”.
Chief Azumah Ndagu also pointed out that it was equally important for politicians believed to be fanning the dispute “to leave the poor people of Bawku Traditional Area alone, instead of continuously deceiving and fanning the wishful thinking of these poor and innocent people of the area, only for them to hope against hope each time.”