Kpando, June 14, GNA-Togbega Noagbesenu III, Paramount Chief of Awate Traditional Area in the Kpando district on Wednesday stated that all parcels of land in the demarcated area of the Volta region remained its exclusive bonafide assets.
He said any attempts to delineate a portion of the region’s land or cede it through tribal allegiances, especially to interested parties outside the region, constituted an aberration and infringement on the conscience and rights of the people of the region. Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview, on the creation of a second region, Togbega Noagbesenu said historical facts and its antecedents could not be sacrificed on the altar of provincial ethnocentrism in choosing the new region.
He recapped Northern Volta Region (NVR) to be the appropriate name of the proposed new region to reflect the aspiration of the symbolism of its forebears and present generation of people.
The Paramount Chief however, suggested a split on an 8:7 district ratio, considering the region’s capacity of 15 districts, with preferably, Hohoe being the capital of the proposed new region because it is strategically and centrally located.
Togbega Noagbesenu named the districts to constitute the NVR as South Dayi, Kpando, Hohoe, Jasikan, Kadjebi, Nkwanta, Krachi East and Krachi West.
He said proponents’ suggesting a 5:10 district split ratio with Jasikan as capital and name Oti Region could therefore not be conterminous with the realities on the ground.
Togbega Noagbesenu said the imperatives have changed greatly and the Buem-Krachi District map, a pre-independence document, which was sighted and being used to exclude Hohoe and others from the proposed region was not tenable in the scheme of things.
“Beyond the map, was, a Trans-Volta Togoland, a Gold Coast and a present Ghana”, he recounted.
He said contemporary dynamics in a challenging social order and urbanization have more qualified the region for the split, purposely for easy and effective administration.
Togbega said apart from being the fifth largest region and the longest in the country, the split would enable each halve to be treated as separate entities like the case in the Upper West-Upper East regions. He said the split would rejuvenate the Regional House of Chiefs and place it in proper perspective contrary to the current situation, which made some members permanent and others on rotational bases resulting from the large contingents of paramountcies in the region.
Source: GhanaWeb
