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Wa, Ghana – A Superintendent of Police at the Ghana Police Service and native of the Upper West Region, Peter Lanchene Toobu, has implored all Dagaaba people to return to values such as discipline, hard work, good neighbourliness and unity which are very synonymous with them as a people.
Superintendent Toobu believes that, these values helped build the Dagaaba peoples ethnicity centuries ago, making them one of the most revered groups of people in Ghana and beyond.
The senior police officer however pointed out, that there is lack of regard for these important core values by the Dagaaba people themselves and this is somehow eroding the beautiful accolades and attributes that are often associated with them by non-Dagaaba people.
Addressing the 2019 Seontaa festival of the chiefs and people of Vieri in the Wa West District of the Upper West Region, he appealed to the residents who are predominantly Dagaaba people to go back to their long-cherished traditional values of helping one another in times of difficulty.
He decried the increasing lack of love, unity, selflessness and caring for one another as a bane for peaceful co-existence among Dagaaba families and communities which would enable them to champion common developmental agenda.
“Today I hear in our villages it is no more advisable to eat from other peoples’ kitchen. I hear there is evil imprisoning people within their homes. I have been told, we are virtually destroying the good-hearted Dagarti spirit that made Ashanti people to refer to us as “Mpepe fuo” because we do all our things with precision (p3p33p3). They also call us “Ntafuo” which originated from the fact that we behave like twins. Our unity was unquestionable, our integrity unparalleled. When we say yes, it is yes. And when we say no, no doubt it’s a no.
….. children were brought from the developed South to the North to get better education with the Dagarti discipline. Today, many of our families down there seem not interested in taking the risk to come and leave their children in the village for fear of wicked people, falling standards of education and the dying core value of the Dagao – integrity, which has affected discipline.
“We can be the happiest even if we are not the most powerful, rich or influential. Happiness is a choice to make. Let’s choose to be happy. Let’s choose unity. Let’s be each other’s keeper. Let’s eschew the spirit of greed. Let’s continue to share the little that we have with those who are less privilege. There is a lot of blessing in giving or sharing than receiving. If you have been waiting to be self-sufficient before you share with the vulnerable in society, you will be waiting for ever”, Mr. Toobu pointed out.
He continued: “When the family is strong we will kick out poverty family by family. We will do away with preventable diseases that cause unwarranted deaths. We will do away with illiteracy a disease which is highly contagious with damming consequences. … let’s unite against poverty, illiteracy and disease by sacrificing to ensure that our children are send and maintained in school. Don’t just drop them in school. Ensure they stay in school”.
The Executive Secretary to Ghana’s Inspector General of Police called for the need to prioritize “the fight against illiteracy over other social vices such as corruption, pull-him-down attitude, stealing, and the ease with which we lie that has crept into our cultural fabric and being consolidated as we glorify ill-gotten wealth. Why have we failed as a people to abhor dirty wealth?
The ‘We don’t steal and we don’t-cheat-Dagaaba, what happened?’
“Let’s go back to our major core value of integrity? That is who we are? If we try to be anything else, we shall be living a fake live in which there is no satisfaction. Stealing, cheating, corruption and telling lies are un-Dagarti. Let’s stop this attitude now before we lose completely our cultural heritage”.
By Savannahnewsonline.com/Philip Liebs
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated, Mr Peter Toobu is a simple man,we understand his positive qualities and we will follow him a very long way,may the good Lord continue to gives you wisdom and knowledge in Jesus name.
People of Wa west ,superintendent Toobu is a good material and he is in for development in the Wa west district a of all qualities,the Ga will say,onaaaaapo