Bugum fire festival suspended

The Northern Regional Security Committee has placed a ban on the annual Bugum Fire Festival which was scheduled for Monday.

The action followed the security problems in some parts of the region in recent times.

The secretary to the Committee, who is also the Chief Director of the Northern Regional Co-coordinating Council, Charles Abass said in a statement that “the festival shall not be celebrated or observed by anybody anywhere in the whole of Dagbon, including Tamale, Nanum and Central Gonja traditional areas where the occasion can 'easily lead to the breach of peace'.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the celebration of the Bugum festival in any of the above mentioned areas is banned and shall remain as such until further notice,” it stated.

The statement, therefore appealed to the general public to cooperate with the REGSEC by observing the ban in the interest of peace, law and order.

The festival had been in a limbo since the disturbances in Yendi in March 2002 which led to the murder of the Ya Na, Yakubu Andani II, the overlord of Dagbon and about 40 others.

Dagombas and some ethnic groups in the north mostly celebrated the festival on the 10th day of the new year of the lunar calendar.

It was believed to mark the edict of a prominent Dagomba chief, who, in tracing his lost son after dusk, ordered the lighting of thatches which eventually led to the discovery of the lost son sleeping under a tree. It also had some Islamic religious connotations.

Source: Daily Graphic