RECOGNISE NORTHERNERS WHO HAVE EXCELLED (PAGE 13, MARCH 27, 2010)

A non-partisan political pressure group in the Upper West Region, Equality for Neglected Northern Heroes (ENNORTH), has called on the government to immortalise the names of people of northern extraction who excelled in their various fields of endeavour.
The group said there were many northerners who were doing extremely well yet they had not been recognised by successive governments.
“We the 21st century youth from northern Ghana wish to overturn this line of thinking through advocacy work for all northerners who have evidently distinguished themselves in their public lives, dead or alive”, a spokesman of the group, Mr David Banamini, said at a press conference in Wa to officially launch the group.
He said most of the leaders of northern Ghana were perhaps not assertive enough, thus making them easily accept subservient positions as demonstrated in the selection of running mates for politicians.
He attributed this to the lack of knowledge of some heroes of northern Ghana like Dr Hilla Limann, S.D. Dombo, Imoro Egala, Yakubu Tali, Aliu Mahama, John Mahama and Edward Gyader.
Mr Banamini said among the heroes the one who stood tall was Dr Hilla Limann, who was the President of Ghana during the Third Republic.
He said the government of Dr Limann was egalitarian and socialist in nature and had a semblance of the current government and “we wish to use this medium to tickle the government to expedite action by appropriately honouring and recognising Dr Limann for his valuable contribution to the political history of Ghana”.
“We are highly disappointed, however, by the fact that all the compatriots of Dr Limann except him have been given absolute recognition by successive governments. These acknowledgements come in various forms including erecting statutes and naming of institutions and principal streets across the country to the sheer neglect of Dr Limann”, he added.
Mr Banamini, therefore, called on the government to erect a bronze statue of Dr Limann at a vantage point with a beautiful landscaping to match so that the only President produced by northern Ghana would be appropriately immortalised while a model senior high school must be established immediately in northern Ghana and subsequently named after Dr Limann. It should have modern facilities, state-of- the-art classrooms, library and an ICT centre.
Additionally one of the principal streets in the capital city of Accra must be named after him.
Mr Banamini was grateful to the leadership and council of the Wa campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS) for naming one of its halls after the former President.
“We wish to call on the students of this great hall to learn about the principles and ideals of Dr Limann and partner the group to institutionalise a lecture series for the purpose of the creation of greater awareness of Dr Limann”, he concluded.