It has been four years of uninterrupted peace and unity among the Chiefs and people of the Dagbon Kingdom in the Northern region. The dawn of a new era started with the enskinment of a new King of the Dagbon State in Yendi, capital of the ancient traditional kingdom in Ghana.

After the kingmakers went into conclave, Ya Naa Abukari II (Naa Gariba II) was pronounced as the new Overlord of Dagbon after 17 years of the Chieftaincy stalemate.

This became possible following the successful implementation of the Dagbon Peace Roadmap announced by the committee of Eminent Kings led by the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II after years of deliberations and compromises.

The two feuding royal families - the Abudu and Andani - after 17 years of mediation at the Otumfuo led mediation committee finally settled on an amicable resolution to smoke the peace pipe.

Roadmap

The mediation committee in the latter part of 2018 presented the road-map to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for an Executive Order to pave way for the performance of the funerals of the late two overlords of Dagbon, Ya Naa Mahamadu Abdulai IV and Ya Naa Yakubu Andani II.

The Otumfuo explained that the duty of the committee was to restore the customs and traditions of the Dagbon traditional area and restore peace among the people and further announced the committee’s work continued until a new Ya Naa was enskinned.

Following the Executive Order by President Nana Akufo-Addo, the Abudu family were the first to perform the funeral rites of the late Ya Naa Mahamadu Abdulai who died on 15th October, 1988.

His royal appellation was “Kuli Noli din vela ni lagim nyuriba” to wit “a stream sparkling with purity gathers multitudes of the thirsty."

The funeral of the revered traditional ruler was scheduled from December 4 to December 18, 2018.

The Andani family also followed suit with the funeral rites of the late Ya Naa Yakubu Andani II from January 4 to January 18, 2019.

Enskinment

The Kingmakers of Dagbon led by the Kug’Naa immediately went into conclave after the funerals to select a new ruler to occupy the revered Lion Skins of the Dagbon Kingdom.

Ya Naa Abukari II succeeded the late Ya Naa Yakubu Andani II having served in Savelugu (Yoo Naa), which is one of the three skins leading to the Yani Nam.

Progress

Having the Ya Naa in place since 2019, the Northern Region has witnessed significant infrastructure development and lots of foreign investors now settling in the area. The local economy has started thriving and several efforts are being made to improve the socioeconomic status of the people.

As result of the existing peaceful atmosphere, the Northern region has hosted some landmark and historic national events since 2019, notably is the 62nd Independence Day Celebration organized in Tamale in honor of the Ya Naa and people of Dagbon for embracing peace.

The event was historic because it was the first ever the Independence Day parade was held outside of the national capital, Accra.

Undoubtedly, this has brought back some confidence in both local and international business community to direct their investment and job opportunities into the region.

Impact

The General Secretary of Dagbon Youth Association, Alhaji Jaagbo Baako, in an interview with The Custodian lamented the impact of the crisis on both human resource development and infrastructure growth over the years.

“Many homes were broken and friends lost their friendship. We lost our dear ones on the course of the crisis and we could not meet together”, he stated.

Nevertheless, the youth leader observed things have begun falling back to shape and indicated the desire of the people, especially the youth of Dagbon which is in development.

The DAYA General Secretary also highlighted the construction of the first-ever Tamale Interchange named after Naa Gbewa and the Tamale International Airport phase two Terminal Building as some of the major government investment to open up the area and boost local economy.

Alhaji Yagbo Baako further mentioned the Akufo-Addo administration has cut sod for the construction of Yendi to Zabzugu road and the reconstruction of the Yendi to Tamale highway.

He added there is also a facelift of the road network of the regional capital among several other road projects in the region.

Meanwhile, the Executive Director of HOPin Academy in Tamale, Mr. McCarthy McGbathy, who is also an entrepreneur has told The Custodian the prevailing peaceful atmosphere is golden.

The HOPin Academy provides pragmatic and innovative approaches towards exploring the various fields of entrepreneurship with the aid of technology, thus beating the competition in labour markets.

He visits several national monuments and tourist attraction centres in Ghana with over 600 international tourists annually.

As an excursionist, the HOPin Academy Director believes the impact on tourism is crazy, adding it is really amazing to experience absolute peace in the Northern region.

He emphasized there is a sudden improvement in the tourism business ecosystem especially accommodation and transport compared to few years ago when there were disturbances in the area.

“If you take tourism for instance, every country has a system where their Foreign Ministry updates them on current happenings in every location around the world; and once there’s no peace somewhere, it automatically dries out every business pertaining to people flying into a particular destination.”

Even though it is said that the absence of war does not mean there’s peace, zooming to the state of mind and virtues of the current generation leaves much to be desired for peace and cohesion in the northern region.