Northern Regional Deputy Minister says it was deliberate to undeveloped the north

The Deputy Northern Regional Minister has said it was deliberate colonial policy to keep the people of the Northern Territories undeveloped by the colonial masters during the colonial era.

Alhaji Abdul-Basit Fuseini said there was a number of reasons which he said include stereotype, and religious which made the people of the north subservient to their counterparts in the southern sector.

He said the north was kept as a reservoir for cheap labour to work in plantations, mining and in cocoa farms.

According him, because of such deliberate colonial policies to undeveloped the Northern Territory, education was introduced over 200 years in the south before it was introduce in the north.

This he said has made the northern territory impoverish despite several interventions rolled out by government to improve the livelihoods of the people. 

The deputy ministers was speaking during a courtesy call on him at the Regional Coordinating Council by the Livelihood Support Network, a network of local NGOs operating in the Northern Region and a team of volunteers from TZEDEK, a UK Jewish Development Organization.

The Jewish community, through TZEDEK, provides direct support to sustainable self-help grassroots projects that can make a big difference.

The organization work across Africa and Asia, with a particular focus Northern Ghana, North east and Southern India.

It also focuses on areas where they can make an impact and over a number of years have developed criteria to allocate funds. TZEDEK which is a Jewish term literally mean justice collaborates with local organizations in the areas of Education and training, Agriculture, health and livelihood empowerment of the destitute.

The chairman of the Livelihood Support Network, Sule Mohammed, said the network has over 7 organizations working in the area of Child rights, education, health, Agriculture and women and youth empowerment.

Mr. Mohammed, who also doubles as the Director of Nfasimdi Development Association, said the network has chalked several successes which have contributed to the transformation of several communities in the northern region. He therefore called for the support of the northern regional cording council to enable them achieves better livelihood for northern region and the country in entirety.

Adam Sternberg, a leader of the  TZEDEK team of volunteer reiterated the fact that government should as a matter of urgency collaborate effectively with Non Governmental Organizations in the northern part of the country to help erase the issues of poverty, illiteracy, human rights violations and enhance food security.

Alhaji arrested for sleeping with a 16 year boy in Zogbeli in Tamale-Ghana

--> A 35 year old, Alhaji Ridwan Ishmael who is alleged to be a gay is in the grips of the Northern Regional Police Command for allegedly sleeping with a 16 year old boy in Zogbeli, a suburb of the Tamale Metropolis. 

The 35 year Alhaji Ridwan Ishmael was apprehended by area vigilantes upon several warnings issued to him to stop such acts.

According to residents in the area, Alhaji Ridwan has been sleeping with the boy for some time now and when he was encountered over the issue he absconded to neighbouring Burkina Faso.

Upon return, they said he continued with his nefarious activities with the boy who he always sent to restaurants to treat him with the necessary meals and monies the boy need.

The issue was accordingly reported to the chief of the area which led to his arrest and subsequently his submission to the police. Information Fiila News gathered indicates that Alhaji Ridwan is allegedly sleeping with young boys in the area and buying them motor bikes in return.

It has also been uncovered that Alhaji Ridwan has been generous to a lot of people in the area which he shields to engage in such evil deeds.

Meanwhile, the Northern Regional Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit say Alhaji Ridwan will be arraign before the court today.

Gay rights is an issue the religious culture of the country frowns upon being Islamic, Christian or traditional. Ghana in 2011 rejected the UK's Prime Minister David Cameron’s threat to cut aid service to countries which refuses to legalize homosexuality.

Late Prof. Mills, then state categorically that the UK could not impose its values on Ghana and he would never legalize homosexuality.

N-R records 1,674 snake bites from Jan-July

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The latest figures released by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has revealed that over 1,674 snake bites have been recorded from January to July  this year in the Northern Region.

The East and West Mamprusi districts are the worst affected areas where significant numbers of cases were recorded.

The Northern Region also recorded a little over 2,550 snake bites in 2012, whereas over 3,300 cases were recorded in 2011. This came to light at a stakeholder’s forum in Tamale.

Briefing the stakeholders, the Northern Regional Director of Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Kwesi Twumasi attributed the alarming rates of the figures to lack of protective clothing as people failed to use protective clothing.  

The alarming rate of figures of snake bites in the northern region has become a source of worry to stakeholders in the sector, even though the ministry of Health’s policy on the snake bite serum indicates that the serum be administered free of charge.

Snake venom poisoning is a common emergency especially in certain rural farming communities in the northern part of the country during the raining season.

It said in Ghana the reported admission cases and deaths suggest that the problem is underreported and that the epidemiological features vary from continent to continent and region to region.  

There are about 3,000 species of snakes in the world to date, of which 300 species are poisonous to man.

About 25 species of Africa origin are believed to cause death in humans with similar number causing swellings and local pain.

N-R RCC to institute performance league-table for MMDAs

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The Northern Regional Minister has revealed that the Northern Regional Coordinating Council will institute a league-table on the performance of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the region.

The league-table will however indicate the status of implementation of projects, programmes and activities in each district and place them in order of merit.

 It will also serve as a motivator to hardworking assemblies and remind non-performing ones to pull their weight or be blamed and sanctioned appropriately.

Mr. Bede Ziedem made this revelation during a meeting with, Presiding members, Coordinating Directors, Heads of departments and MMDCEs in the region.

 The minister said assemblies need to continuously remind themselves about their mandate of mobilizing resources to make life better for their people.

In that regard, the minister emphasized the importance for the assemblies to give utmost attention to the mobilization of their own resources rather than solely relying on external sources.  

Mr. Ziedem pointed out that in 2012, revenue generation in assemblies in the region averaged 76.15% which was an increase of 17 percent from the previous year. He said some districts however generated revenue as low as 17.21 percent of their target.

 Despite the peace the region is currently enjoying, Mr. Zieden  said that cannot take it granted and made a special appeal to areas disputes especially chieftaincy to resort to dialogue and negotiation as a means of resolving their difference .

The regional minister also urged MMDAs to revitalize their district security committee and make them more proactive to deal with potential sources of conflict before they escalate.

 Briefing the participants on the spate of education in the region, the Northern Regional Director of GES, Apanga Paul bemoaned the state of infrastructure in most Senior High schools in the region.

He has also appealed to government to complete uncompleted projects in SHS to ease congestion in most of the schools.

T-Poly Rector asked stakeholders to delink partisan politics from education

--> The Rector of Tamale Polytechnic, Dr. Abdulai Salifu Asuro has observed that in order to ensure sustainable and quality education systems in the country, stakeholders must delink education from partisan politics.

He said stakeholders in the sector must also take a second look at the educational policies government is implementing to ensure that they do not conflict with the professional standards.

This he said would bring about relative stability of policy in the education sector to ensure consistency of results and expose the real challenges for workable solutions.

 The rector of the Polytechnic made the observation at the Northern Regional branch of the Ghana National Association of Teachers 4^th quadrennial regional delegates’ conference in Tamale which was under the theme; “Education in crisis: re-examining the roles of stakeholders in the northern region for 2015”.

In her welcome address, the Northern Regional Chairperson of GNT, Madam Martha Akemo said, teachers in the region are quite aware of the looming crisis in the education sector but measures adopted so far are not yielding the desired results which could enhance quality teaching and learning.  

According to her, teachers are concerned about the fate of the two streams of Senior High School graduates not because of the numbers involved but the dark clouds which hang around their absorption into the universities and other tertiary institutions.  

She opined that stakeholders in education and teachers need to collectively assess and identify the actual problems in the sector and find a workable and lasting solution to them.