Tamale, March 26, GNA - Alhaji Boniface Abubakar Saddique, the Northern Regional Minister and Madam Mariam M. Gisele Guigma, Burkina Faso Minister of Women and Children's Affairs on Saturday joined members of Keep Fit Clubs in a fitness exercise in Tamale.

The exercise brought together Clubs from across the country at a meeting in Tamale that is aimed at sensitising the public on the importance of physical fitness to promote good health.

Alhaji Saddique joined the members as early as 0530 hours in the morning through some principal streets of the Metropolis and later converged at the Kaladan Park.

The Minister is a keen member of the Keep Fit Clubs whilst the Burkina Faso Minister was a guest of honour at the occasion. About 500 members of Keep Fit Clubs from Takoradi in the Western Region, Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region, Wa and Tumu from the Upper West Region and Tamale in the Northern Region are participating in the three-day National Keep Fit Clubs camp at Tamale.

Some of the dignitaries who graced the occasion were the Tamale Metropolitan Chief Executive, Alhaji Iddrisu Adam, Alhaji Alhassan Mamoud, Northern Regional Director of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and Alhaji B.A. Fuseini, a former Northern Regional Minister.

The six Clubs are competing in Tug-of-War, bend-ball, volleyball, soccer as well as sack race and spoon and egg race.

Alhaji Saddique advised the members of the Clubs to use such forums to promote peace, unity and development in their communities as well as to serve as a platform to discuss their business transactions.

He described the hosting of the event in Tamale as timely since it would help erase the negative impression some people have about the Region and called on the participants to use the conducive atmosphere now prevailing in the Region to interact and explore avenues to develop their mutual business opportunities.

The Minister suggested frequent exercises to be undertaken by the public, adding that such activities promotes discipline and called on all to exercise to promote good health and long life. Alhaji Saddique called on the various ethnic groups to co-exist peacefully and bury their petty differences and work towards national reconciliation.

Mr Albert Atutiga, a patron of the Tamale Keep Fit Club told the GNA Sports that the essence of the meeting was to promote good relationship with the other Clubs across the country and to create an inter- regional sporting forum amongst the people as well as to erase the wrong impressions of some parts of the country.

He expressed the hope that the successful programme and participation of the various Clubs in the various games in the Tamale Metropolis would ensure that many more friendly games would be organized without any hindrance.

The Wa Keep Fit Club presented 2.5 million cedis cash while the Takoradi Fit Club also presented a carving as a souvenir to the Tamale Keep Fit club to foster their sporting relationship.