Mr Davis Acham And Mr Evans Akangyelewon Atuick Write in the interest of Buluk Part II

Mr Evans Akangyelewon Atuick 

DAVIS ACHAM'S THESIS ON THE DEVELOPMENT DISPARITY BETWEEN NAVRONGO AND SANDEMA, VOTING PATTERN AND DEVELOPMENT OF BULUK: THE CASE OF MPS- A REJOINDER-PART II

Folks, in part I of this piece, posted on May 4th 2020,  I demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that the development disparity between Sandema(and by extension, Buluk) and Navrongo (and by extension, Kassena- Nankana) cannot be reduced to an argument about the differentials in voting pattern between the two. In that write up, I fell short of examining the argument about how changing or maintaining MPs could impact our constituency’s development. This was also raised by Acham to the effect that our current MP, James Agalga, has done 8 long years in parliament and ought to be kicked out because “Buluk deserves better!” Therefore, in this second piece, I shall engage you on the role of MPs and our development status. I shall also look at our collective complicity as Bulsa- from political appointees to the ordinary man in Buluk.

As most of you may have noticed, I have tried to avoid writing about or discussing politically charged matters concerning Buluk, especially when it concerns our political leadership -parliamentary contestants. The reasons for this are obvious: I have known the contestants for years and relate very well with each of them. But, our people say, when you are on top of a tree and decide to drop the single ripe apple you found for someone, you must mention that person’s name otherwise others may as well scramble for that single apple. Therefore, I as I drop this apple together with the name of the owner(s), know that I do so with no malicious intent to pull down anyone but to prick our minds so that, together, we can assess our situation and decide on the way forward.

Now to the issue of MPs and the underdevelopment of Buluk! Does changing an MP merely for staying long in parliament bring the much-needed development we crave for? I don't think so. If we must change an MP, it has to be because he has not delivered on his mandate and not merely because he"stayed on the seat for 8 long years!" Mps like Bagbin, Haruna Iddrisu, Kyei Mensah-Bonsu and Kennedy Agyapong etc. have done more than three terms in parliament and still in there for a reason. We do know that, in some of these constituencies, all you need to do to be in parliament is to get on the ticket as the NDC or NPP parliamentary candidate. For instance, Haruna Iddrisu has never been contested by anyone in Tamale South in the last 3 or 4 elections. He must be doing so well as an MP to deserve that privilege. Perhaps, there is no better alternative to replace him and do better than him. So, why change an MP just because he stayed too long in parliament if he is performing? I am not holding brief for our current MP, the Hon. James Agalga, but we must be proud to have a young MP who is not only very vocal in parliament but is the ranking minority member for the defense and security committee of parliament. He is also his party's spokesperson for defense and interior security matters of the country. Juxtaposed his position and output in parliament with those of previous MPs since 1992 and you will come to the inevitable conclusion that none of them has had a better impact on our parliamentary democracy than the Hon. James Agalga is doing now! Indeed, we have had MPs in the immediate past who neither asked a single question nor made one statement on the floor of parliament throughout their term, except for the usual "yeah yeah!"

Therefore, in making decisions about maintaining or replacing our MPs, we must be guided, considerably, by reason of his or her performance within the context of the job description of an MP rather than the number of years done in the House! Of course, the quality, experience, knowledge, and personality of the alternative candidates must be critically examined and juxtaposed with that of the incumbent to see who is best fit. This is what happens in constituencies where people care more about the development of their constituencies and districts rather than the self- actualization and aggrandizement of their own partisan and parochial interests! It is imperative that we learn to avoid the “you- have -chopped -enough- also -give way” mentality in deciding on who to vote for as a lawmaker to represent us in parliament. Parliamentary work is serious business and  much more than simply “chopping” and riding in big V8 vehicles, hence, we must not just vote for individuals just because “it is their time to also go and chop,” or “they belong to our party” but because they have what it takes to do the job well. Instances of certain individuals winning as MPs and their party’s presidential candidates losing miserably in same elections abound in our democracy.  Thus, if we must change any MP, the alternative must also be far better than who we have as an MP in terms of quality and what he brings to the table as a prospective lawmaker, and representative of Buluk!

Let us even examine the job of an MP. We all know that an MP's main job is to make laws on our behalf (but not mainly to bring development projects). Of course, Ghanaian MPs have a common fund through which they can, and must, initiate small to medium scale development and social intervention projects to alleviate the suffering of their constituents. They are also expected to lobby for development projects to improve the lives of their people. In our current winner-takes-all democratic dispensation, the chances of an opposition MP being able to lobby and bring anything home from the ruling government is next to nothing! Even where their government is in power, it is still difficult for most MPs from areas that are seen by the ruling government to be pro-opposition and not voting massively for the course of “our party.” Needless to say, ruling governments have their own priorities and prioritized areas for channeling certain key development projects to within a four- or eight-year time frame. This could account for our inability to have our only road, stretching from Chuchuliga to Fumbisi, tarred since 1992 even though we have had Martin Amidu, Sylvester Azantinlow, Daniel Syme and James Agalga serving as ministers in NDC governments while Mrs Agnes Achigabatia also served as deputy-Regional Minister under NPP.

Nevertheless, our sitting MPs can, and must do more for Buluk because we see their colleagues in other disadvantaged constituencies doing certain things that they can replicate here in Buluk to ameliorate our poverty-stricken situation. For instance, we saw the Hon Ablakwa providing furniture for schools and provided laptops to ICT teachers under his jurisdiction! We were crying on top of our voices for furniture too and we expected our MPs to have been very proactive in helping to address the deficit but didn’t see much evidence of demonstrable quick commitment and action from them. Of late, I have seen pictures of projects done by our MPs. That is commendable, but must they wait for an election year to showcase these interventions?

However, to single out an MP for blame for the state of our underdevelopment is disingenuous because we know fully well that other factors come into play. Apart from geographical reasons, we must critically examine the role of our district assemblies which are the main development vehicles at the grassroots level.

The assemblies are primarily responsible for executing their government’s development agenda in their respective districts. It is they who must know the development challenges on the ground and work hard to get them addressed. Therefore, the various DCEs who have led Builsa assemblies over the years up to now deserve part of the blame for our current state of underdevelopment. What have they, collectively, and individually, done to improve upon what they came to meet when they had the opportunity to serve? To what extent did they lobby for projects and pushed the development agenda of Buluk to the best of their abilities? To what extent have they cooperated with our MPs for the common good and not used their positions to impede the work of sitting MPs just so their party's candidate or they, themselves, can go to parliament? To what extent have our DCES, pass and present, dedicated themselves to the course and welfare of Buluk, worked tirelessly and selflessly to ensure the development of the district(s) rather than pretending to be working while using their positions to amass wealth at the expense of the already poor district(s)? Indeed, we have heard allegations and rumors of how some DCEs in the past allegedly made wealth overnight through “smart means” while their districts remained stuck in the quagmire of underdevelopment. The argument often made is that our assemblies are poor and do not have the resources to carry out development projects. Yes, I agree but a serious DCE must think outside the box and come up with innovative ways of attracting funding and government sponsored projects to his district. For instance, if an ordinary NPP Parliamentary candidate can lobby for a nursing college and police stations, why can't the NPP government's DCE run to NDA and Accra to lobby for same? The DCEs can even cry out to citizens of Buluk to help in areas such as education and health. The Dr. Akinkangs and Awiapos have shown that this can be done! More so, if citizens can mobilize and provide furniture to some schools when the assembly was slow in acting, it tells you that with effective engagement strategies, a DCE can get resourceful citizens to help. The recent COVID-19 crisis and the love shown by Bulsa in the diaspora via the numerous donations lends credence to this point! So, they have nothing to lose but their worries of what to do amid the limited resources at their disposal.

One other area that needs innovative thinking by our DCEs is our revenue mobilization. Our revenue mobilization has been very poor due to insurmountable leakages at the collection points. Needless to say, it is common knowledge that most of the revenue collectors in the markets make deals with traders and pocket money at the expense of the assembly. What mechanisms are in place to check these leakages, and to increase the IGF of the assembly? Why can't our assembly clear Ayisha boala and construct modern sanitary facilities to make money from traders and visitors? Public, Private Partnership Agreements (PPAs) arrangements can come in here just as the case of the Sandema Community Center project which is now serving visitors and citizens alike. I am not convinced that our assemblies take property tax mobilization seriously.

Moreover. Buluk has massive tourism potential but successive DCEs and assemblies have failed to harness this potential to bring in tourists.  We are known to have been the only tribe that defeated Babatu three times, but we are conspicuously missing from the slavery tourism map of Ghana! If Pikworo in Paga is a famous slave tourist site, why can't Doninga slave market or Azagsuk serve same purpose? In Salaga, a new Baobab tree has been planted at the so-called Salaga slave market and they are making money from tourists. How expensive is it to plant a shea tree at Akum-cham location and attract tourists? How difficult is it to have identified a place in Kanjark or Doning as Babatu’s camp or as the battle ground for Babatu’s final defeat? And there are so many of these sites: there is a rock with an imprint of a human foot at Doinga. There is a song they will sing and once that is done, no matter the size of your foot it will fit in! There is also a hollow rock in Chuchuliga that makes music and reaches far places! We have caverns at Fiisa, Aposuk and Zamsa! The big Baobab tree at Abadom-piung near Abuluk has a big hollow trunk that use to serve as hiding places for our people. It also doubles as a deity with bees hanging on a branch all the way to the ground. I even visited there recently when I went home! We have Atuga-pusik/guuta, Atora, Kumjiim, Kom and KanJarg-piung shrines etc. By now, the famous Azagsug shrine or Kanjark-piung cavern and shrine should have been serving the tourism purpose the Tenzug shrines are doing in Tongo, but zero! Even our great late traditional ruler, Nab Dr Ayieta Azantinlow (Alik-fuubi), alone is a massive tourist attraction! His medals, awards and vehicle should have been housed in an “Azantilow Ayieta Museum” by now, and his great story told to our children and visitors alike but no!  Our feok has massive tourism potential if we take the Buluk traditional artifact exhibition seriously. If we position our war-dancing festival well, we could become a major tourist destination in Ghana, especially for expatriates who want to learn about slave trade.  We have allowed the south and coastal towns to rather take advantage and woo tourists to initiate development projects in their areas even though it is an open secret that most the slaves taken out of the Gold Coast came from the “Ashanti Hinterland”-northern territories.

The internet and social media have endless opportunities for marketing economic and tourism opportunities for our two districts but are our DCEs thinking about this? Of course, we know they sometimes come on Facebook but what do they do when they come on? From the comfort of their air-conditioned offices, big vehicles or homes, they are either reading quietly ongoing discussions and comments or  showing off politically tainted projects for self-aggrandizement and singing praises of their political benefactors or engaging in a war of words with a certain MP just so they can remain relevant!  The question is: How much does it cost for a serious DCE to create a website or Facebook page to promote development and tourism opportunities in our two districts?

The point I am making here is that our DCEs can do much more to get revenue for development projects or attract development agencies to help. For instance, they can engage and encourage NGOs to do projects in our districts because we are not attractive to most NGOs working in the region. Why are NGOs largely avoiding our districts? What are our DCEs doing to woo more development-driven NGOs to help our course?

We cannot blame the MPs and DCES alone for our state of development. As citizens of Buluk, we are also individually and collectively responsible for our current state of development through our actions and inactions in one way or the other. Our assembly members have not helped matters by politicizing the operations of our assemblies and putting square pegs in round holes just because they belong to party A or B. Think of the number of times they have failed to elect a good PM to ensure the smooth running of the assemblies. Political infighting, divisions and double-blind partisan politics have compromised the ability of our assemblies to serve as both the helpmate and watchdog of our DCES. The competence and integrity of an elected PM is always a key factor in determining how a certain DCE delivers! If a PM is corrupt and only interested in his belly getting full, how can he effectively check the performance and conduct of an equally corrupt DCE? Some contractors from Buluk have been awarded contracts to do projects in their own constituencies and they did shoddy jobs. If you are such a contractor, are you not as guilty as the political appointee who failed to do his job well? If you are a civil servant, district engineer, revenue collector or teacher to what extent have you been committed to your job and executed your duties with integrity to the best of your abilities? Some of us have been privileged to serve on feok and other development committees to work for the collective interests of Buluk, but we used our positions to serve our own parochial interests. Are we not as guilty as the politician who failed to deliver? There are even some of us -Bulsa-who are more powerful than our political appointees and even very close to the corridors of power in various governments over the years, but have failed to push for development projects for Buluk even though they are capable of doing that. Some of us have set up factories, schools and other businesses in the cities and can easily take advantage of the 1 D 1F to set up small-scale factories and businesses in Buluk to create jobs but we won’t do it. Even when others want to do it, we discourage them. Are we not enemies of our own progress? Some of the so-called big men and power brokers who only come in election year to force our poor people in the constituencies to vote a certain person or party because of our parochial interests cannot also escape blame. In fact, we have all fallen short of the glory of God if we do a self-introspection about our conduct in our professional and individual lives in relation to the development of Buluk.

In a nutshell, maintaining or changing an MP may not necessarily translate into an improvement in our lot as a people. As such, if we must change an MP, it must be for good reasons such as his incompetence on the job and or having a better alternative, but not merely because he has stayed too long in parliament. Indeed, MPs alone cannot be blamed for our underdevelopment! As I have demonstrated earlier, aside our geographical disadvantage, all-and-sundry, including, our DCES, big men and women (power brokers), contractors, civil servants down to the last man must share the blame for where we are now in terms of development. At this crucial juncture, therefore, we need an all-hands-on-deck unified effort to advance our development. Mi noi tiri!

Yours truly,

Asalpiung!

A proud son of the soil!

All in the interest of Buluk-"Zurugaluu lam Kan be".

"Nandum yeng Kan tiak bogta"