With Barely 3 months to the general elections, the chiefs and people of Sherigu, a suburb of the Bolgatanga municipality in the Upper East region have given President John Mahama’s government an ultimatum to connect the entire community to the national grid or risk losing their votes.
According to residents, the absence of electricity in most parts of the community have witnessed several incidence of crime such as robbery and deforestation of their forest by some miscreants while drawing back the performance of school children who would have studied at night if the community had been connected to the national grid.
The angry community members who vested their anger on Tuesday in Sherigu during a press conference resolved to vote against the National Democratic Congress (NDC) come December 7 if their concerns are not met.
“We are re-echoing into the ears of the leaders of NDC in the Bolga Central constituency and His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama that if we don’t see light in Sherigu before December 7, then their stronghold in the Bolga Central constituency will vote massively against NDC and His Excellency John Dramani Mahama.”
The community which has a total population of about 24,000 lacks basic social amenities such as portable drinking water, good road network, education and health facilities.
Drumming home their grievances with placards which read “no light no vote”, “Sherigu deserves better” among others, the voters said the governing NDC has taken them for granted for far too long despite their unflinching support to the party.
“Since 1992, Sherigu though in the Bolga Central Constituency, we have been voting for NDC. NDC wins majority of the votes from Sherigu community but there is absolutely nothing in the community which can be pointed to the general public as a memento left by NDC government.”
It will be recalled about 100 hectares of land offered by the chief and people of Bolga-Sherigu to government for the construction of the much talked about regional referral hospital. However, the project is yet to see the light of day.
The community which generously released a vast land for the hospital project in its quest for development also hosts a refuse dumping site.
Community members say they risk being infected with diseases and have said that their animals that serve as sources of income are dying by eating substances at the poorly fenced refuse dumping site.
Asakesango Anthony who read the statement on behalf of the people of Bolga-Sherigu entreated members of the community to give a death ear to the “deceitful message from the NDC” that tends to divide them as a community.
They have therefore resolved to vote massively against the governing NDC if their concerns are not addressed.
“Our interest is not just about joining queues and voting, we join queues to vote for development.”
The statement added “We are stating again that if His Excellency the president and the NDC fail to give us light before December 7, then they should forget our votes. Sherigu won’t vote for NDC if we don’t see light before December 7.”
By: Joshua Asaah | A1RADIOONLINE.com | Ghana
