Wa, June 1, GNA- Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama has told the people of Upper West Region that the region was still young and needed maximum peace and cooperation from "all sons and daughters" to push its development agenda forward.

He said it was disheartening that people from the Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions had refused to acknowledge the presence of poverty in their midst and had always taken to arms at the least provocation thereby allowing poverty to plague them. "The North has now portrayed itself as a place of conflicts. Its road infrastructure and health facilities are bad yet the people continue to fight among themselves and scaring non-governmental organisations that are supporting to improve their livelihoods to flee the area", Alhaji Mahama said. Vice President Alhaji Mahama was speaking at a dinner dance

organised by the Upper West Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) to

round off activities marking the 25th anniversary of the creating of the region in Wa last night.

He said conflicts would not do them any good and advised that they

work together to attract investors to help develop the regions. "Let us learn to seek justice from the law courts to settle chieftaincy and

land disputes and avoid taking the law into our own hands", he advised. Vice President Alhaji Mahama said because of conflicts, some district

assemblies were spending all their revenue on peacekeeping instead of development projects.

He said the Upper West Region was endowed with qualified human resource, whose expertise if properly tapped and harnessed could promote a rapid development of the region. He said: "Talking about the North, the Upper West Region stands taller

than the other two regions in terms of human resource capital and

attributed its success story to the Catholic Church, which has provided

good schools and training to the people".

Vice President Aliu Mahama congratulated the chiefs and people of the

region for a successful anniversary and urged them to see the development

of the region as a priority. Earlier in the day, Vice President Alhaji Mahama visited Douri to pay

tribute to the late Naa S.D.Dombo, leader and founder of the NPP tradition in the region, who died ten years ago. He announced that government would soon tar the Jirapa/Douri road to

make it accessible for people to travel to Douri, which has become a tourist attraction. He said government has provided electricity to the town to encourage

the setting up of cottage industries and urged the youth to take advantage of it to enhance their living conditions. Vice President Alhaji Mahama asked the people to vote for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the December 7 polls, saying: "One of the greatest

things we can do to remember the late Naa S.D. Dombo was to take away the Jirapa seat from the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Naa Clement S.D. Dombo II, Chief of Douri admitted that the NDC

administration had done some development for the Upper West Region but the NPP had undertaken more infrastructure development that was impacting positively on the lives of the people. He thanked the government for providing Douri with electricity and appealed for three more transformers to extend electricity to the rest of the community. Vice President Alhaji Mahama also paid a visit to Brifo to mourn with the Brifo Naa, Harry Ganda, who lost one of his sons.