Don’t you just hate it with every bone in your being/body when southern politicians swoop into the north and pontificate and patronize residents?
And annoyingly, they always do it in the height of the election season when their political fortunes are at stake. At no other time do they deem it fit to travel to the region and familiarize themselves with the numerous challenges confronting northerners.
The PPP presidential candidate Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom is the latest southern politico to find his way to the northern regions to try and woo northern voters while blaming the ruling party for all the ills besetting the area.
Dr. Nduom who was recently given a new leash on his political life by the Supreme Court after his earlier disqualification by the Electoral Commission was overturned, is suddenly energized, and what does he do? he makes a beeline to the north and there he begins to spout absolute nonsense.
Besides canvassing for votes, Mr. Nduom was also grasping at influence and relevance and before crowds of bemused onlookers who won’t vote for him anyway, Mr. Nduom arrogantly assigned to himself the power and means to solve all that which ills the region, and then proceeds to describe the region in such apocalyptic terms that my heart sunk:
Listen carefully to the litany of problems that Mr. Nduom identified as primarily afflicting the north —-terrible and dangerous roads, disease infected water when it is available, poor quality schools, prevalence of preventable diseases, malaria, cholera and meningitis and unprecedented unemployment. Talk about doom and gloom.
Mr. Nduom’s tone reminds me of Donald Trump’s denigration of the African-American community on some of his campaign stops when he described African Americans as living in poverty, surrounded by crime, poor schools and housing and that if they left their homes to go to the store, they were likely to get shot.
There is no doubt that the northern regions have high levels of concentrated disadvantages, endemic poverty and what have you. And yes, these are facts we cannot run away from.
Shamefully, these problems have been around for years, and the blame lies squarely on politicians in Accra, particularly southern politicians who have always stood between the north and development.
Indeed, they have been the stumbling block to progress in the north with their legislative maneuvers. It is, and always has been the tendency of southern politicians to highlight the problems of the north while doing absolutely nothing concrete to bring about solutions.
Northerners are painfully aware of the numerous times southern politicians in parliament killed policies designed to uplift the northern regions from grinding poverty; the late expansion of the Tamale International airport being prime indication of how far southern politicians will go to deny what is due the north.
And, the recent revelation that the main opposition party at one time decided to scrape the medical school at the UDS, but for the timely intervention of some northern progressives, has not exactly endeared southern politicians to voters in the north.
It is politically fashionable these days to blame the ruling NDC for the socio-economic problems of the north, but those who do it are engaging in gross misrepresentation and huge distortion of facts.
Historically, the northern regions have always been an after thought for Ghanaian governments, from British colonial rulers to post independence Ghanaian administrations.
Therefore when southern politicians journey to the regions on their high horses and begin to tell us northerners who is best suited to solve our seemingly intractable problems, they should be reminded that the problems are their own creation.
