Traditional leaders in the Upper East Region have been admonished to play a critical role in maintaining peace and harmony in their communities. This can be done when traditional leaders desist from gagging the people they lead and respect the opinions of the community members.
Paramount Chief of the Sirigu Traditional Area, Naba Atogumdeya Roland Akwara III observed that some community members disrespect their chiefs and, at most, resort to violence as a way to express their grievances because the traditional leaders have failed to operate an open-door policy for their subordinates to freely discuss issues worrying them.
“As traditional leaders, the role that we play in harnessing peace is to respect our people. We should try to open our gates for them to bring any case they want to bring to your palace. You were made a chief by the people, and you don’t open yourself up for the people to come in and explain what is worrying them. And when that is restricted, then they resort to violence.”
Naba Atogumdeya III was speaking on A1 Radio’s forum on how stakeholders in the region could contribute their quota to maintaining peace and order.
He observed that many community members are at loggerheads either on claims of ownership of a piece of land or whatever because the community members are “either not taken seriously by their leaders, who are chiefs, and they resort to violence, or they don’t respect their chiefs.
The paramount chief of the Sirigu Traditional Area entreated his fellow chiefs in the Upper East Region to try as much as possible to resolve conflicts internally with the support of institutions such as the Peace Council, the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Catholic Diocesan Development Organisation (NABOCADO), and the Regional House of Chiefs before resorting to external support for a resolution.
Naba Atogumdeya emphasised the need for capacity building for chiefs on conflict resolution so they can detect conflicts and resolve them when they occur.
In the management of conflicts in the region and the country at large, the role of the media is critical in terms of what they report on and how it is reported.
Naba Atogumdeya III commended media personnel in the region for the efforts they are making to maintain peace in the region but urged them to be circumspect and fair in their reportage.
Naba Atogumdeya III, who mediated the Doba/Kandiga conflict that has seen relative peace in the area, was not happy that some media reports nearly resparked the conflict after a cleansing exercise and a non-denominational church service were held to find lasting peace in the area.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1Mhz|Joshua Asaah|Ghana
