<<Print>>Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has urged politicians to campaign on issues and ideas and stop threatening and intimidating their opponents.
He said the Government was committed to ensuring peace, transparent, free and fair elections, therefore, every citizen should support and cooperate towards achieving that goal.
Vice President Amissah-Arthur made the call when he attended the 40th Anniversary Celebration of the Gonjaland Youth Association at Salaga, in the Northern Region, at the weekend.
The Association converges once every year to fraternise and initiate development for the Gonja area.
The theme for the celebration is: “Forty years of promoting peaceful co-existence for sustainable development of Gonjaland; the role of the Gonjaland Youth Association”.
He asked the traditional rulers in the Gonjaland to restore the reputation that the Gonja people had by having peaceful enskinement regimes to remain models for other areas to emulate.
He charged the traditional authorities in the area to amicably resolve all the recent misunderstandings in respect of ascensions to the various skins in Gonjaland, saying that they had a rich history to protect and a standard to maintain.
Vice President Amissah-Arthur stated that the elimination of the misunderstandings and conflict would provide the atmosphere for sustained progress and development. He said the theme for the celebration imposed on them the need to promote peace and unity as the surest guarantee to development.
“We must live up to this theme and ensure that the land remains peaceful and unified for the development that needs to take place,” he stated.
Vice President Amissah-Arthur also urged the people to maintain the rich history of the Gonja people, which had highlighted unity, courage, the protection of what is right and to seek the best interest of the people.
He said those attributes constituted a great heritage that should guide the Association and everybody in Gonjaland in whatever position or business they were engaged in.
He said the qualities constituted the building blocks for the future generation.
Vice President Amissah-Arthur said the Association should harness resources to market for tourism and cultural potentials of the area.
He urged leadership of the Association to work closely with State institutions with the requisite expertise as well as the local authorities towards exploiting the tourism potential of Gonjaland.
The Yagbon-Wura ,Tumtumba Bore Essa II, the Overland of Gonjaland, who was represented by the Wasepe Wura, in a speech read by Abdullah Abubakar, a registrar at the Traditional Council, urged the people to come together to support the activities of the Association to achieve its intended objectives.
He emphasised the need for the Association to concentrate on its core mandate of conflict resolution and peace management.
He urged the people not to allow their private interests, social challenges and political settlement bring disunity among the group.
The Yagbon-Wura commended the initiators and past leaders of the Association to continue to work hard and uphold and defend the hard earned success and image of the Gonja Kingdom.
He also urged the chiefs in Gonjaland to use arbitration, customs and traditions of the land to settle chieftaincy cases, which he said, were affecting development in the area.
He appealed to the Government to help find a lasting solution to the acute water problem in Damongo.
Mr Alhassan Dramani, the President of the Gonjaland Youth Association, appealed to the Government to consider setting up a satellite campus of the University for Development Studies in Damongo.
He said though the Government had undertaken some key infrastructural development projects in the area, as Oliver Twist, they would request for more projects.
He urged the Government to give the people its assurance that Cocobod would support them to go into the cultivation and production of jute sacks through a Public Private Partnership arrangement.