Residents of Kandiga, a community in the Kassena-Nankana West District in the Upper East Region have served notice of a mass boycott of the ongoing Population and Housing Census exercise.
The boycott which they say has taken effect is in protest over what they described as irregularities in the demarcation and description of the boundaries of Kandiga.
According to the residents, “the appearance of the name Akurugu-Daboo as Enumeration Area for the Akunkongo/Abempingo and Atosale/Azaasi Electoral Areas is in contempt of a court judgment approving and gazetting the above two Electoral Areas as the rightful names for any National exercise and not the illegal name Akurugu-Daboo which is just the name of one family out of Seven Clans in the two Electoral Areas.”
Kennedy Atulley who read the statement on behalf of the Kandiga Traditional Area Council indicated that several attempts to get the Regional Statistician and the District Census officer in Paga and other necessary stakeholders to address the matter proved futile.
The chief and people of Kandiga during a press conference said until their concerns are addressed, they have unanimously decided to boycott the national exercise bearing in mind the likely consequences the community may suffer in terms of development.
Read the full statement:
PRESS CONFERENCE ON THE BOYCOTT OF THE 2021 POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUS BY KANDIGA CITIZENS TO DEMAND JUSTICE FROM GHANA STATISTICAL SERVICE
Our Royal Highness the Chief of the Kandiga Traditional Area, the Tindaana and Elders of the Traditional Area, all Assembly Members, Opinion Leaders, Women and Youth of Kandiga, all media houses gathered here, invited guest, Ladies and Gentlemen, today marks yet another significant day in the history of Kandiga our homeland where the entire Kandiga citizenry has to take a very painful decision not to participate in the ongoing Enumeration exercise in the country.
The Chief and people of Kandiga had to take this decision based on some irregularities in the demarcations and description of the boundaries of Kandiga, an issue that occurred in previous population and housing census that has brought about pain and anguish to the people of Kandiga.
First and foremost, the appearance of the name Akurugu-Daboo as Enumeration Area for the Akunkongo/Abempingo and Atosale/Azaasi Electoral Areas is in contempt of a court judgment approving and gazetting the above two Electoral Areas as the rightful names for any National exercise and not the illegal name Akurugu-Daboo which is just the name of one family out of Seven Clans in the two Electoral Areas.
Following the Automated Fast Track High Court, Accra ruling on 18th October, 2012 before His Lordship Justice Edward Amoako Asante, our lawyers (SIMA Consultancy) wrote a letter dated 16th August, 2013 to the Regional and District Heads of Departments creating their awareness about the court ruling with much emphasis on the nullification of the name Akurugu-Daboo and the use of Akunkongo/Abempingo and Atosale/Azaasi as the legally approved and gazetted names for any exercise in the area. We therefore see the appearance of the wrong name (Akurugu-Daboo) as an infringement on our fundamental human rights and interference on the territorial integrity of our people hence must be resisted with alacrity.
Apart from the above issue, we also have some challenges in the Bembiisi and Nabilingo Electoral Areas that equally demands redress but several attempts to get the Regional Statistician and the District Census officer in Paga and other necessary stakeholders to address the matter proved futile. In these two Electoral areas, some of the Kandiga houses and the Kassena Nankana East Health Center are captured under Mirigu and Nabango making the affected inhabitants uncomfortable to participate in the enumeration exercise.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we wish to put it on record that Kandiga has no problem with our neighbouring communities (Mirigu and Nabango). Historically, we are known brothers under one Traditional Council but with proper demarcation and definition of the boundaries of each of the three neighbouring communities. Therefore, the carving of some houses from one community into another has the potentialities of sparkling boundary disputes which the people of Kandiga are never interested to experience any longer. We want to categorically state that we prefer not being counted until the issues are resolved than take part in the exercise at any cost be it catastrophic or not. We have learnt a lot of lessons from past experiences and will not want to be used again in this recent significant National exercise at our own expense.
At this stage, it is prudent to notify the general public that the Chief and people of Kandiga in our own wisdom decided to write petitions on both cases addressed to the Regional Statistician and copied the Government Statistician, the Kassena/Nankana Municipal Census Officer in Navrongo and that of the Kassena/Nankana West District Census Officer in Paga but have since not yet received any response from the Regional Statistician.
Rather, the outfit from the Kassena/Nankana West District led by the chairman of the implementation committee met with the Chief and people in Kandiga and called on us to reconsider our decision. However, they were merely verbal in their discussion without any document to serve as prove of future reference, a situation we will not want to gamble with, considering their determined directives for us to take part in the Census exercise with the existing irregularities.
It is also worth noting that Kandiga has a total number of Ten Electoral Areas out of which Eight are placed under the Kassna/Nankana West District and Two others under the Kassena/Nankana Municipality making the Geo-demographic demarcation of the area haphazard and discriminatory. For the purpose of records, we wish to inform you that the Akunkongo/Abempingo and the Atosale/Azaasi Electoral Areas which were then referred to as Akurugu-Daboo Electoral Area was duly inaugurated as part of the Kandiga Area Council under the Kassena/Nankana District in the year 2003 until some people managed to carve it out to form part of the Kassena/Nankana Municipality for their own parochial interest. We therefore want the entire Ten Electoral Areas to be properly demarcated and placed as one Census Area under the Kandiga Traditional Area in the Kassena/Nankana West District since that is the ethnicity we belong as one people with a common destiny.
The media, bearing in mind the likely consequences and quagmire that the community will be suffering after this whole exercise, we have unanimously decided to boycott the ongoing National Population and Housing Census until our concerns are addressed before we can participate as a people. We pledge to cooperate fully with the Ghana Statistical Service to ensure a satisfactory and successful enumeration exercise once our concerns are addressed.
Thanks to you all and particularly our Royal Highness and our Elders and we wish everyone safe journey back to your various destinations as we anticipate a vivid reportage from our highly professional and trusted newsmen.
…………………………….
Hon. Mathew Akakuzia
(Area Council Chairman)
…………………………….
Mr. Atanga Gilbert
(Secretary to Kandiga Naaba)
TO
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Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1Mhz|Joshua Asaah
