The Minister for Inner Cities and Zongo Development, Alhaji Abu-Bakar Boniface Saddique, has tagged as “an enemy of the zongos” any government that decides to do away with his ministry should the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) lose power at any point in the future.

The minister is of a strong view that all the ugly things that characterise the zongos, the name by which Muslim-dominated settlements are called in the Hausa tongue, are the byproducts of the deliberate neglect of such communities by successive governments since pre-independence times. Such as high levels of poverty, jumbled housing settings, unsanitary conditions, youth unemployment and high crime rates among other social ills.

He even says the original name for the traditional Muslim communities, which only used to be temporary and orderly colonies for travelling Islamic clerics and traders in times past but are today generally permanent ‘happy slums’ occupied by people from different religious backgrounds, has been corrupted to sound as “zongo”. He says the right term is “zango”.

The minister, who was addressing Muslim groups at Bawku and Bolgatanga in separate consultative meetings held Sunday in the Upper East region, looked much pleased not just about him being in charge of a new ministry the President had tasked to right the wrongs in the zongos but also because the ministry was the invention of his party and that it was the first and only of its kind yet in all of Africa.

But he feared the newfound solution to the age-old problems confronting the communities he had grown to love could end up being just as temporal as the original zongo itself was meant to be. This is because, as the NPP is confronted with the same ‘mortality’ that awaits any ruling party at the Flagstaff House, a future electoral defeat remains a potential threat to that new ministry. A future government, ideologically opposed to the NPP, may either decide to discard the innovation or show a level of commitment too little to sustain it.

“Development in this country has been discriminatory- very discriminatory and skewed to other areas. The inner cities and the zongo communities, in particular, have been neglected in terms of development. Before independence and after independence, we have been neglected. We have been excluded. This government believes we must include the excluded. The current state of zongos reflect a major developmental challenge, manifesting in poverty, illiteracy, disease, [unacceptable grade of] environmental sanitation, poor housing conditions, high levels of social and economic vulnerability and limited prosperity,” the minister noted.

He continued, as an excited crowd intermittently interjected his speech with extolling phrases chanted in the Arabic Language to Allah, “We as a government, we are not saying we are going to stay in perpetuity; though we expect to stay for long. The most important thing is that whoever comes after NPP should not make a mistake to say that he’s scrapping the ministry. If he scraps the ministry, believe it, he’s the enemy of the zongos. Simple. This ministry is not a political gimmick. This ministry is not to deceive you to vote for the party. This ministry has come to stay.”

Highlights of the Inner Cities and Zongos Projects

The minister, together with a team of officials from the ministry, sought inputs from participants after he had outlined the projects the ministry would carry out this year to launch the transformation of the target communities. The consultative meetings had a beautiful blend of Muslims and representatives from the other faiths since the zongos today are not inhabited by Muslims alone.

“The key areas that we have targeted for this year in our action plan include infrastructure enhancement and sanitation, economic empowerment, social development, cultural promotion and security and crime control,” he announced. “Zongos played a very great role in assisting in our attainment in this country. The grandfather of the current National Chief Imam was among the first 600 soldiers this country ever had,” he added to a round of applause from a proud audience.

Mr. Saddique also threw some light on the Zongo Development Fund, which was captured in the NPP’s manifesto for the 2016 general elections, and for which government is said to have allocated GHS219 million Ghana cedis.

“The Zongo Development Fund is part of the seven key priority and flagship projects outlined in the 2017 Economic Policy of the President- that is the budget- and has been allocated a seed money of GHS219 million. The public consultation is going to continue across the country in the coming weeks and we expect that the inputs we collate would help fine-tune the draft bill before its presentation to cabinet and, then, to Parliament for their consideration and approval. The Zongo Development Fund is not rhetoric.

“Upon the passage of the Law that establishes the Zongo Development Fund, the necessary disbursements would be made and applied to eligible priority programmes and projects outlined in the ministry’s 2017 action plan. We are charged as a ministry and mandated to ensure that we help make the zongo community a safe, resilient, human-accepted and sustainable human settlement for people to live in,” the minister explained.

Zongo Development Fund is party-blind- Regional Minister

Some had expressed fears that much as past governments were said to have excluded the zongos in their development plans, the Zongo Development Fund would exclude the political opponents of the ruling NPP, too. But the Upper East Regional Minister, Rockson Ayine Bukari, allayed those fears when he took his turn to address participants in Bolgatanga, the regional capital.

“Let us encourage our people in the zongos to embrace the Zongo Development Fund. Once it is rolled out, it is no longer a party business. It is for all, irrespective of one’s political persuasion,” Mr. Bukari assured. He also told the Christian representatives present, “To our brothers from the Christian religion, you are here to help us all design the Zongo Development Fund intervention for the benefit of humanity. Even though the zongos are predominantly Muslim, there are many others from other religions who reside there.”