Bolgatanga, April 14, GNA- The Chiefs and people of the Bolgatanga Traditional Area in the Upper East Region at the weekend celebrated their annual "Adakoya" festival with a call on the people to help maintain and sustain the current peace in the area. The "Adakoya" Festival is celebrated every year to express appreciation to God for His abundant blessing for a successful farming season and to solicit His guidance and protection for the ensuing season.

The occasion was also used to take stock of what had been achieved during the past year and to fashion out strategies to overcome constraints and challenges impeding development. The Paramount Chief of the Bolgatanga Traditional Area, Naba Martin Abilba the III and the Upper East Regional Minister, Mr. Alhassan Samari, explained that without peace, development could not thrive and appealed to the people to continue to maintain and sustain the current peace the Municipality and its environs were enjoying. Despite the ethnic diversity, various religious, groups, including numerous Moslem sects, Christians and Traditional worshippers, they operated among themselves without any provocation of conflict, they said.

Mr. Samari appealed to Traditional Authorities to use their powers to influence citizens from the area, who were residing in the Diaspora to invest in the Region to help create more jobs for the people, especially the youth who often migrate from the area to the south in search of non-existence jobs.

"Chiefs should not be seen as mere custodians of our culture, traditions and practices, but should above all, champion the socio-economic development of their people", he emphasized. He entreated citizens from the area to ensure that their children were sent to school, saying the best legacy they could bequeath to their children was education saying, poverty in the north could be curtailed if parents send children of school-going age to school.

Mr. Samari expressed dismay about the way and manner farmlands were seriously being degraded as a result of bad agricultural practices, resulting in impoverished soil and low crop yields and appealed to chiefs to help put in place mechanism to curtail the problem.

"I am afraid if this trend should continue unchecked, we shall in not too distant future be unable to celebrate the Adakoya festival and other festivals since the degraded land would not be able to sustain crops and livestock production", the Regional Minister stressed.

Mr. Samari asked traditional rulers and organizers of festivals in the Region to catalogue the various festivals in the National Calendar for tourists to know and attend such festivals as that would help boost the tourism industry in the region.

Naba Abilba III, narrating some of the achievements chalked through the annual celebrations of the festival, indicated that certain negative cultural practices which were dehumanizing, such as female genital mutilation, widowhood rites and tribal marks, among others were on the decline.

He announced that plans were far advanced by traditional authorities and the Municipal Assembly to review the requirement for customary marriages to make it possible for many young men and women to easily contract marriages and live decent lives. He advised people who farm along river beds and those who build along water ways to desist from that since they would be affected when it rained heavily like it did last year.

The Paramount Chief also urged people in the area to help maintain environmental cleanliness, saying the assembly alone could not do so and appealed to communities, religious bodies and traditional rulers to join the crusade to maintain environmental cleanliness.