OPINION: Unfair Reportage On Issues Of Northern Origin

This short write up was triggered after pondering and reflecting on past history of supposed unfair treatments meted to northerners. This has now been established.

I am forced to come out to express my unhappiness about how news items from the North are reported in the media.  It is an established fact and non-contentious, that northerners suffer from discrimination and verbal abuse, some of which are as a result of wrong media reportage.

I still remember how friends in school would tease at me for the fact that, there was a tribal conflict in the early 90’s up North. The reason reported was because of guinea fowl whereas there was more to that.

Currently in Ghana, there has been series of reported clashes between herdsmen and residents of some farming communities in Kwahu area of the Eastern region and Agogo area of the Ashanti region. A majority of Ghanaians know the major reasons that sparked these attacks as; cattle grazing leading to destruction of farms, raping and killing women within those areas.

Nowhere did we read from the media with headlines capturing those reasons for the attacks such as;

“Kwahu/Agogo Residents And Fulani’s Fight over cattle” OR “Kwahu/ Agogo People Fight Fulani’s over Sex”, BETTER STILL “Fight over Women between Kwahu/Agogo people and Fulani’s”.

Instead, some of these “pleasant” headlines were used.

CITIFM- 9 dead after Fulani herdsmen and farmers clash

BBC- Ghana: Fulani farmers fight don kill 8 for Eastern Ghana

PULSE- Six feared dead after clash with Fulani herdsmen

But in the case of the recent spark of conflict between Dagomba and Konkomba’s earlier this week, these were headlines we saw.

CITIFM- One dead in Dagomba-Konkomba clash over pig

GHANAWEB-Konkombas, Dagombas clash over pigs; two feared dead

PEACEFM- Two Feared Dead in Dagomba, Kokomba Clash over a Pig

Based on the above, one can clearly understand and see the validity of my heading.

Every Ghanaian belongs to a particular tribe which we are all proud to be associated with but we should all see ourselves as Ghanaians and stop this form of indirect hatred and partiality which has the tendency to dis-unite us and shift our common focus from development .

Ghana as a country is focused in moving forward and achieving meaningful success towards nation building & development and as such, we should love one another, see ourselves as one people and trudge along collectively as a group towards national development.

By Prince G. S. Bakari (a concerned Ghanaian)