The Most Reverend Gabriel Charles Palmer-Buckle, Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, has said it would difficult to describe the late Peter Cardinal Pourekuu Dery in an ordinary.

“In my own opinion and in the opinion of many others, the Cardinal Dery was a saint who did the ordinary things in an extra ordinary way.

“This is my tribute to Cardinal Dery”, Most Reverend Palmer-Buckle said, at the Sixth Cardinal Dery Memorial Lecture in Wa on the topic: “Cardinal Dery: Man of the Church”.

The Accra Metropolitan Archbishop, who was the main speaker at the lecture, said Cardinal Dery was good shepherd adding that there is the need to sort out his pictures; and asked those in the pictures to tell more stories about Cardinal Dery to others.

“Don’t throw the pictures away because they could be of greater help and resources to the Catholic Church and many others”, the Archbishop said, adding: “It is only when the frog dies that it can be measured”.

Alhaji Amidu Sulemana, Upper West Regional Minister, said as the Church commemorates Cardinal Dery, it was important for the people to discuss and come out with some solutions to the declining standards of education in the region.

“As Cardinal Dery wished the region to grow in terms of education, it is regrettable to state that the current crops of students are derailing the gains made by Cardinal Dery whose effort was to see the region as the beacon of hope for the people of the north”.

Alhaji Sulemana said the Regional Coordinating Council would welcome all suggestions from other stakeholders such as the clergy and Islamic groups to help in the development of “our dear region and Ghana at large”.

The regional minister used the forum to call on people in the region to be vanguards of peace promotion in the forthcoming general elections.

Alhaji Sulemana appealed to religious leaders to continue to offer prayers for the country to come out of the elections more united than before.

“All of us have the responsibility and a crucial role to play in ensuring peace before, during and after the elections”, he said.