SAVANNAH REGIONAL NDC COMMUNICATION BUREAU ENDORSES THE CANDIDATURE OF MALIK BASINTALE FOR THE POSITION OF DEPUTY NATIONAL COMMUNICATION OFFICER

 The Savannah Regional NDC Communication Bureau has endorsed the candidature of Malik Basintale for the position of the Deputy National Communication Officer of the party. A statement signed by all 7 constituency communication officers and issued by the regional communication officer, Mr RA Jalil and his Deputy, Mr Abu Hassan Mahama. on 20th November, outlined very cogent reasons for their endorsement. Before his decision to run for the run for a national officer, he served diligently first, as a Deputy Communication Officer for the then Northern Region and moved to the newly created Savannah as a substantive Communication Officer in 2019. Find below the press release issued by the communication bureau:

Press Release 

For immediate Release 

20-11-2022 

*NDC- SAVANNAH REGIONAL COMMUNICATION BUREAU THANK MALIK BASINTALE FOR HIS REMARKABLE SERVICE TO THE PARTY AND ENDORSE HIM FOR THE DEPUTY NATIONAL COMMUNICATION OFFICER PORTFOLIO.*

In a unanimous decision taken from the branches to the regional communication front of the party in the Savannah region, we have resolved to reward our immediate past regional Communication Officer,  Malik Basintale by endorsing him openly for the position of the deputy national communication officer portfolio.

I, R.A Jalil, Regional Communication Officer, my Deputy Abu Hassan Mahama and the entire  constituency communication officers across the region arrived at this decision due to the hardwork, progressive performance and relentless efforts Comrade Basintale put up in ensuring the success of the communication machinery in the Savannah region and beyond.

We have taken notice of some co- contender(s) of his, spreading fake news about he being rejected at the regional level and for that matter his decision to contest at the national level.

We find this unfortunate and wish to advise such characters to focus on sharing their policies and explaining what they have done to deserve their positions instead of attacking other persons by way of their campaign message.

Comrade Malik Basintale has gone through the mill and has performed creditably well from his days as the deputy communication officer for the Northern region and subsequently the substantive Communication officer for the Savannah Region.

His outstanding communication, Interpersonal, respectful and dynamic leadership skills have brought him this far and as a region we believe he will make a great Deputy National  Communication Officer to the indefatigable Lawyer Sammy Gyamfi.

His fearless, bold and decisive nature leaves us with no doubt that he will make the party proud in that position and having worked closely with Lawyer Sammy Gyamfi already, we believe he will make a good deputy towards ensuring a balanced communication front.

We wish him well as he tours the nation and may the spirits of Ndewura-Jakpa continue to guide him through the power of the almighty.

God be with you our proud boss Basintale.

*Signed:*

1. *R.A Jalil* 

*Regional Communication Officer.*

*0240998279*

2. *Abu Mahama Hassan*

*Dep. Regional Comm. Officer*

*0242313653*

3. *Yahaya Mumuni*

*Damongo Communication Officer*

*0241279158*

4. *Alidu Abdul-Aziz*

*Yapei/Kusawgu Comm Officer*

*0249989408*

5. *Dramani Bashiru Amantana*

*Bole/Bamboi Comm. Officer*

*0240300046*

6. *Sidik Jabaru John*

*Daboya/Mankarigu Comm. Officer*

*0245246410*

7. *Issah Iddrisu*

*Salaga North Comm. Officer*

*0242686810*

8. *Ebaltey John*

*Sawla-Tuna-Kalba Comm. Officer*

*0240122435*

9. *Yussif Muftawu Hairat*

*Salaga South Sec./ Act. Comm. Officer 0246514036* 

WORLD VISION EU LEAN PROJECT SUPPORTS LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT BOARDS (LMBs) TO PARTICIPATE IN THE 12TH ANNUAL PRE-HARVEST AGRIBUSINESS CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION

By Issifu Seidu Kudus Gbeadese 

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Bunyanso Farms Limited, a private sector player in the World Vision EU LEAN project, participated in the Pre-harvest Agribusiness and exhibition conference held in the Alhaji Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium in Tamale, from 25th-27th October, 2022. The conference among others sought to transform agriculture in Northern Ghana and provide long term market development opportunities for less privileged farmers within the project zone (ie West Gonja Municipal and Kassena- Nankana West District). 

The Landscapes and Environmental Agility across the Nation (LEAN), is a 4-year project funded by the European Union, with an overall objective of ensuring the conservation of the biodiversity; of building climate resilience; to improve livelihoods of small-scale farmers and to ultimately reduce emissions from land-use changes across Ghana. As part of the architecture to execute this project, three projects landscapes have been earmarked across Ghana with three lead organizations to serve as the special purpose vehicles in the execution. The following are the three project landscapes and their respective lead organizations:

1. High Forest Zone which covers the Western North Region is led by Rainforest Alliance as the lead organization. 

2. Guinea and Sudan Savannah Ecological Zones covers Savannah region and Upper East region with World Vision Ghana as the lead organizations, and

3. Forest-Savannah transition zone, which covers Ashanti and Bono East regions and is being led by Tropenbos Ghana and Ecocare Ghana. 

The World Vision EU LEAN project, sponsored the participation of Bunyanso Farms Limited, the West Gonja Landscape Management Board and the Kassena- Nankana West Landscape Management Board in this year’s pre-harvest conference, as part of its core objective to improve livelihoods of small-scale farmers. The three days pre-harvest conference offered participants including Bunyanso Farms Limited, a private sector player, a platform to participate in the conference and exhibition of their products. The theme of the conference was, “connecting the unconnected; the farmer-the market and the buyer.” 

The pre-harvest conference was initiated under the Phase 1 of the USAID’s ADVANCE project in 2011 as a market linkage activity for farmers and buyers. This year’s conference at the Alhaji Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium, offered smallholder farmers and other actors across the agricultural market, to among others build their capacity, networking and building business relationships among farmer-based organizations, and offered an expanded market base to exhibit and market their products. This annual pre-harvest event has grown over the years to become a leading market linkage platform in Ghana and has indeed, achieved its overall objective of creating markets and linking farmers to buyers. Agrihouse Foundation is the executing agency with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, USAID and Northern Development Authority as partners. 

The Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Bunyanso Farms Limited, who also doubles as the General Secretary of West Gonja Landscapes Management Board of World Vision EU LEAN project, Mr Sumani Iddrisu, led 17 participants from the Guinea and Sudan Savannah Ecological Zone, thus—Savannah Region and Upper East Region, to this year’s conference and exhibition. Two (2) of the participants were from Kassena - Nankana West Landscape Management Board while fifteen (15) from the West Gonja Landscape Management Board and Bunyanso Farms beneficiaries of the project. Among the products exhibited by these participants included: Shea butter processors, beekeeping, cashew, Soyabean, chilly pepper, Onions and sheanuts farmers exhibitors, . The World Vision EU LEAN project has pledged to sponsor Bunyanso Farms Limited to participate in the annual pre-harvest conference up to 2024. 

There have been enormous impact that the participants have testified to. Among which are:

1. As smallholder farmers and value chain actors, the capacity building sessions and practical field demonstrations, have impacted enormously on the skills set, new production techniques to improve farm yields, value-addition on products and new technologies for future exploitation.

2. The pre-harvest conference also created a bigger platform for participants to also exhibit and market their farm produce, sign business deals and build networks that will engineer sustainable development within the value chain.

3. The farmer-to-farmer apprenticeship program offered participants an opportunity to have an interface with experts on the field and to learn about the use of farm equipment and machinery, the use of which will improve on their productivity and expand their market base. 

The 3-days event was programmed as follows:

Day 1: Opening ceremony and commodity breakout sessions. This saw various speakers and actors speaking on various topics and others allied activities.  

Day 2: Capacity building sessions and farmer-to-farmer apprenticeship with program. This also saw the exhibition of various products, also farmer-buyer matchmaking sessions, apprenticeship sessions among others.

Day 3: Call to action and closing ceremony. This session created a platform for panel discussions among key players like Yara Ghana, GIZ MOAP NW/REACH and other traditional and political actors within the Tamale Metropolis. This sessions also aggregated all topics discussed and sets out a learning curve and a road map for stakeholders and players within the sector to get the unconnected to connected. 

The 17 Participants who represented the West Gonja Landscape Management Board, the Kassena- Nankana West Management Board and Bunyanso Farms Limited were given certificates of participation at the end of the third day.

JOYCE BAWAH MOGTARI: A “SINGBUNWURCHE” IN A BARRISTER’S WIG.

 By Issifu Seidu Kudus Gbeadese

(Youth Imam from Laribanga)

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The name Joyce Bawah Mogbori, sparks different rays of personalities to different people from different backgrounds. To those in the Maritime industry, she’s an experienced and an all-round solicitor, who can mediate in maritime transport cases both locally and internationally. To the Ghana Shippers’ Council, she was the best Solicitor Secretary the council ever had. To her colleagues who were called to the Bar in 2000, she’s a fearless Barrister. To her political compatriots, she’s the aide to Former President Mahama, a versatile and effective communicator; but to us in Gonjaland, she’s our “Wandiga”, our “Lanka” and our Sungbunwurche in future if the crown falls on her head and she decides to wear it. 

Born into one of the gates (Singbun) from the Kpembe traditional area, the once KPMG consultant traces her lineage right to Kpembewura Shirifi Abudu Lanyor who fathered Yagbonwura Abudu Bawah Doshie, the paternal grandfather of Joyce Bawah Mogtari. 

Yagbonwura Bawah Doshie, a great King of Gonja, who lived up to 110 years (1900–2010), was the father of Hon. John Ewuntomah Bawah. The late John Ewuntomah Bawah (HIS EXCELLENCY), the father of Joyce B. Mogtari, was an Ambassador before his demise. He was one (1) out of the eleven (11) male children of Yagbonwura Bawah Doshie. 

Since the seat of the Gonja Kingdom was moved to Damongo, Yagbonwura Bawah Doshie was the second to have come from the Kpembe gate. Having waited for 16 years on the throne of Kpembe, the son of Ayishetu Naa Iddisah Dasana, ascended Yagbon in 1999, a year before his granddaughter, Joyce Bawah Mogtari Esq. was called to the Bar. He ruled the Gonja Kingdom for 11 years and passed to glory in his 110th year, 2010. 

So, when you see Joyce Bawah Mogtari Esq. speak that impeccable English on TV or on other platforms without blinking, be reminded that, she equally dances with two tails of a horse when Royals from the Gonja Kingdom are called. She’s a royal without scars; a royal with untainted appellation; she’s indeed a royal from a powerful gate in the Kpembe Tradtional Area (ie Singbun). 

If a child of this 21st Century came from such a background and with such support systems, she may just ride high above everyone else with an unusual pride. Yes, a granddaughter of a Singbunwura who was only warming up to take the throne of Kpembe in 1983 should be proud and walk with her chest out. A daughter of an Ambassador during the early years of the 4th Republic could have decided not to roll her sleeves, to get stressed in the lecture rooms of the International Maritime Institute in Malta, in order to win the best student award. She could just decide to call for services from the palace maids or from the political aides. After all, why stress when the next meal was a call away. 

Either of “Wandiga” or “Lanka, is her appellation. So, Joyce Bawah Mogtari is not just one of the beautiful women you find keeping herself in a gym, or a smiley Fellow of the USA—International Visitor Leadership Program, or a versatile expert for the admiralty court, or a cheerful philanthropist, she’s “Singbunwurche” in waiting; a queen mother who has a reserved seat in any palace in the Gonja Kingdom. 

Before the Barrister’s wig could fit her head in the year 2000, a royal crown was already in its rightful place. Before Wesley Girls Secondary could claim her as an old student, her identity was already carved from the almighty Kpembe. A great granddaughter of Kpembewura Abudu Lonyor, a granddaughter of Yagbonwura Bawah Doshie, a great great granddaughter of Naa Iddisah Dasana of Gmantambo Palace in Bimbila, Joyce Bawah Mogtari will always throw two tails of a lion while dancing, to signify royalty from all angles. 

When next you see Joyce Bawah Mogtari in her Barrister’s wig, just know that there is an invincible crown on her head on which the wig rests. Whenever you see her in her simple track suits on the hills of Aburi on weekends, see not only the track suits, but be reminded that she’s in an invincible royal regalia. When next you watch her speak with humility, don’t take that to mean the voice of a weak commoner, she’s a royal who could roar, but for her personality and her upbringing.

THE KNEELING AND BEGGING JOHN MAHAMA NEVER GOT FROM MR. KEN THOMPSON

 By Issifu Seidu Kudus Gbeadese 

(Youth Imam from Laribanga)

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I had mixed feelings when I watched a 61 year old Chartered Accountant, and the CEO of Dalex Finance and Leasing Company Ltd. Mr Kenneth Kwamina Thompson knelt in a live TV program to beg the President of Ghana, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, to fulfill his part of the bargain within the confines of the social contract he signed with the people of Ghana in 2021, January 7. After watching the Investment expert knelt on Umaru Sanda Amadu’s Face 2 Face program on Citi TV, I didn’t know whether to be angry, sad or disappointed. Although, at a point, I felt this gesture of Mr Ken Thompson was symbolic of a failed President, who has breached his part of the agreement with the people of Ghana, I still had a feeling that it equally demonstrates how weak our senior citizens have been rendered by the Nana Addo’s regime. 

What Thomas Hobbes and John Locke contemplated to be the desired outcome of their proposed social contract theory is not the case in Ghana today. What I learnt about this contract is a hypothetical agreement between the society (the people) and the state (the government), such that the former give up some of their powers and liberties to the latter to enforce agreed rules and to provide public goods in the process. 

Unfortunately, in our current situation in Ghana, the citizens as part of their bargain, act benevolently to pay their taxes, give power to the government, give up their liberties, remain calm and hopeful in a hopeless situation, while President Akufo-Addo on his side of the bargain remains egoists and solipsistic, garnished with some bloated sense of entitlement. How do you expect a stable social and political context with  this kind of arrangement? 

I can now feel why Akufo-Addo remains unshaken when he decided to unleash his cruelty in what he called “the banking sector clean up.” Indeed, I can now understand why Nana Addo has that sense of entitlement and can curse taxpayers for doing nothing wrong but demanding their fair share of the National cake. I can understand the reasons for the show of arrogance by the President and his family members who have hijacked the government machinery and captured the state. All these can happen because, the people who are supposed to speak true to power do not only lack the balls to do so, but feel obliged to keep pampering the President to sleep. 

All these people, who today are seen begging the President, are helplessly watching the Minister of Finance, the cousin of the President, with advice from his own company, Data Bank, engages in reckless borrowing, which has ultimately landed us into this economic ditch.  All these people who are now kneeling before the President, with some murmuring instead of shouting, I dare ask, will they have done same or did they do same under a Mahama government? Is Nana Addo a King Pharoah incarnate or he’s the President who begged us for our votes? 

President John Mahama did not get this low with his posturing and deliverables yet, he was attacked, disoriented, hounded and without a space for him to even let out his vision. In the midst of delivering one of the most ambitious infrastructure program, Mahama was called names, he was in fact, called out without hesitation and sometimes without any reasonable grounds. 

If there must be anybody kneeling and begging or apologizing, it has to be President Akufo-Addo and not citizens. The kneeling should obviously not come from senior citizens like Mr Ken Thompson, a 61 year old man. He should muster courage like KKD, like Mr Kwame Mpianim, like Nyaho Tamakloe, to call out the President otherwise, he should just go back to his shelves and leave us to suffer in solitude. I believe his company, Dalex Finance is equally suffering in this economic mess we find ourselves now. I don’t want to believe he doesn’t want his company to sink further hence, this kneeling and begging instead of shouting and taunting. Or he’s heeding the “money doesn’t like noise” call made by the President in his address delivered on Sunday, 30th October, 2022?  

What we, the young ones expect from Mr Thompson is not kneeling and begging the President but by joining us to demonstrate on the streets against this misrule. He should join us as one of the middle class as some did in 2014/15/16. He should be bold to join us cry real hard and call out the President. What is our crime as citizens? Even some tyrants are magnanimous and compassionate with their people, not to talk of a President who begged us to vote for him to come and change Ghana in 18 months. 

If there is anytime for Mr Ken Thompson to man up and stop begging the President in live TV programs, that time is now and not later. I watched him recalled how poverty befell Ghana in the 1970s and that he’s seen same about to befall Ghana under Akufo-Addo. Well, in the 1970s when it happened, the MEN then didn’t kneel to beg those Presidents, they instead took power from them by whatever means possible. President Akufo-Addo cannot be treated like a spoilt chap who cries over his spilt ice cream, he has to be treated like a failed President. The time is now or we all perish later.

I come in peace.