NORTHERN REGION HAS MORE CHALLENGES (PAGE 20)

Story: Zakaria Alhassan, Tamale

THE Northern Region is the largest region in the country in terms of land mass but among the least developed. The region occupies 70,384 square kilometres and accounts for 29.5 per cent of the total land area of the country.
The vastness of the area, however, comes with its own daunting challenges. In spite of its geographical stretch, access to the 18 districts in the area is a nightmare as most of the roads linking them are not motorable, especially during the rainy season.
Apart from Yendi, Savelugu/Nanton and Central Gonja, the roads leading to the rest of the districts from the regional capital, Tamale, are not tarred.
Indeed, the region lags behind in every facet of national development, such as health, education and food security.
There are simply not enough health facilities and personnel to adequately cater for the health needs of the people. The regional hospital in Tamale has also deteriorated over the years, making a mockery of its current status as a teaching hospital.
The region also has the unenviable record of having the highest illiteracy levels in the country. Female enrolment is also low while academic performance keeps on falling every year. Apart from the inadequate existing educational infrastructure, almost 50 per cent of the inadequate teachers are not also trained.
The mainstay of the people, agriculture, has virtually collapsed as a result of lack of farming inputs, credit facilities, ready market and erratic rainfall, thus compounding the poverty of the people. It is not an exaggeration when the three northern regions are said to be the poorest in the country. You really have to see it to feel it.
Even though the region is endowed with some mineral deposits such as iron ore and lime, their potentials have not been tapped. The unavailability of industries and employment opportunities has made the teeming energetic and hardworking youth redundant, resulting in majority of them migrating down south to engage in menial jobs.
As the sages say, “the devil finds work for idle hands”. It is, therefore, not surprising that some selfish individuals and groups are luring those desperate, hungry and angry youth into engaging in intermittent conflicts in the area at the least opportunity.
Indeed, the problems of the region could partly be attributed to the neglect it suffered from the British colonial masters. The people were deliberately denied access to formal education for centuries and only engaged as hewers of wood and a labour reserve at the country’s mines and cocoa farms down south.
It was due to those reasons that the Northern Regional minister, Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, had cause to appeal to the British High Commissioner to Ghana, His Excellency Nicholas Westcott to increase the British government’s aid to the area.
The minister, who was speaking during Mr Westcott’s courtesy call on him at his office in Tamale, commended the British government for its assistance to the area over the years but noted that ‘‘much still needs to be done to improve on the socio-economic fortunes of our people.’’
Alhaji Idris further noted that even though the government and other donors had contributed significantly in reducing the guinea worm disease in some parts of the region, much needed to be done to eliminate the debilitating disease.
‘‘The region has come a long way but we are yet to come out of the woods as we are still grappling with challenges such as the extension of electricity, water, health and educational infrastructure to rural deprived communities,’’ he intimated.
“Coupled with the difficulties is finding lasting solutions to the recurrent conflicts in most parts of the region,” Alhaji Idris added.
The High Commissioner said his government was not unaware of the difficulties Ghana was facing in its drive to attain the Millennium Development Goals as set out by the United Nations. He, therefore, promised to assist in addressing some of the concerns of the minister.
Mr Westcott, however, stated that it was in recognition of development challenges that his government had entered into several bilateral agreements with Ghana government to help turn the fortunes of the country around.
Mr Westcott was on a two-day working visit to the region and was accompanied by the Political Officer of the Commission, Rosie Tapper.