THE Upper West Region is no doubt the smallest in the country and one may expect that its governance by regional ministers would have been so easy but that is not the case.
For sometime now the region is gunning for the title of the “Region with the highest turn-over of regional ministers”. Within a period of nine years the Upper West Region has had four regional ministers.
These are Sahanoun Mogtari, Ambrose Dery, Hickah Benson (all within the eight-year rule of ex-President J.A. Kufuor) and the latest to join them was Mahmud Khalid, who spent less than one and half years in office during the present government.
The removal of Mr Khalid was as a result of infighting within his party with the regional executive on one hand and some supporters of the former regional minister on the other. Although the Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabengba, is acting now, the current situation has opened the floodgates as people are seriously lobbying to fill this void.
So far an investigation by the Daily Graphic has revealed that four names have come up as potential regional ministers for Upper West. They are Alhaji Issahaque Salia, a former Member of Parliament for Wa East, Mr Pascal Dery, a development worker, Dr Francis Dakura, the incumbent Member of Parliament for Jirapa, and Mr Caesar Kale, the Deputy Upper West Regional Minister.
Sources within the regional NDC are currently assessing the chances of these personalities and hope the best person will be nominated.
By assessing the chances of Alhaji Issahaque, the sources were of the opinion that, although he was capable of handling the region, he was not dynamic enough citing his loss of the Wa East parliamentary seat to the New Patriotic Party when the constituency was a known no-go area for the NPP.
Again they cited his humiliating defeat during the NDC primaries prior to the 2008 general election as another factor, after which he was not seen during the campaign that brought the NDC to power.
On Mr Pascal Dery, the NDC sources were of the view that on two occasions he contested to be elected as the regional representative on the Council of State and lost. He is not a known NDC member.
For Dr Francis Dakura, they argued that he was once a cadre but abandoned the ship and tried to organise the Convention People’s Party in the region against the NDC and when he realised the difficulty he decided to turn his attention towards the NDC and took advantage of the death of Edward Salia to become the member of parliament on the ticket of the NDC.
Touching on Mr Kale, they described him as a thorough bred NDC who as regional secretary had fought for the course of the party in all spheres in the region.
More so he has kept abreast of the challenges facing the region and has shown quality leadership skills which had endeared him to so many people.
“Apart from this, he enjoys the support of the rank and file of the party in the region because of his humility and is ready to listen to all and sundry. In short he is a problem solver”, a source told the Daily Graphic.
With all these arguments going round, the people of the Upper West Region are waiting for President J.E.A. Mills to give them a regional minister. They appealed to President Mills to involve the regional executive in the process in order to get what they termed “People’s Regional Minister”.
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