UDS TO ESTABLISH PEACE STUDIES CENTRE (PAGE 11, SEPT 22, 2010)

AS part of its social responsibility, the University for Development Studies (UDS) is to establish a Conflict and Peace Studies Centre in Wa in the Upper West Region.
The proposed centre would be open to the various traditional councils and areas for sensitisation issues that start and aggravate conflicts.
Chiefs in the region have therefore, been called upon to patronise the centre when it starts operation.
The new Vice Chancellor of the UDS, Professor Haruna Yakubu, announced this when he introduced himself to members of the Upper West Regional House of Chiefs in Wa.
He said the university had observed that there were many chieftaincy succession disputes in the Upper West Region just like in all the other northern regions and noted that these were being handled peacefully through the dispute resolution mechanisms that existed under the regulations regarding such disputes.
“I salute all the chiefs here for resolving to engage in peaceful resolutions to these conflicts”, he added.
Prof. Yakubu said being a deprived area, the north needed to concentrate on solutions and therefore, urged the chiefs to invite the Wa campus of the UDS to come to their areas to help design and sell their development plans.
He mentioned the Faculty of Integrated Development Studies and Faculty of Planning and Land Management, all on the Wa campus which could be of great support in this regard.
He encouraged the chiefs to establish scholarship schemes in their traditional areas for brilliant needy students, especially in science and medicine with preference to the girl–child in their areas.
He thanked the Upper West Regional House of Chiefs for releasing its conference hall for lectures when the Wa campus was established in 2002, saying this had facilitated the rise of the UDS to become one of the centres of excellence in Ghana as far as pushing the agenda of tertiary education was concerned. Until the start of this academic year, the hall was one of the main lecture halls of the Wa campus.
Prof. Yakubu hoped the support would continue to grow “in our common resolve to achieve sustainable development in the Upper West Region in particular and Ghana in general.
He appealed to the people of the region, particularly those in the Wa municipality to be kind and tolerant to the students of the university when they were in need and erred in their conduct since they were young people.
The President of the Upper West regional House of Chiefs, Naa S.D Gore II, bemoaned the activities of motorbike riders since they were causing havoc in the municipality.
He hoped that the good initiative of the Vice Chancellor of the UDS would foster greater collaboration between the chiefs and the university.