Nothing can be achieved without peace, sacrifice - Nene Akuaku

The President of the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs, Nene Abraham Kabu Akuaku, has appealed to Ghanaians, particularly chiefs, not to allow their individual differences to override their collective responsibility of ensuring peace and unity ahead of election 2012.

‘’Nothing good can be achieved without peace and sacrifice. We have to bury our differences and live as brothers and sisters. We have to settle all chieftaincy and land disputes in the Ga-Dangme area with love and tact,’’.

Nene Akuaku made the call last Thursday at the launch of ‘’Odehei Awards’’ in Accra on the theme ‘’ Coming Together: Recognition, Acknowledgement and Appropriate Rewards’’

The awards are a joint initiative between the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs and Social Ghana,a non-governmental organisation.

It is to reward sons and daughters of Ga-Dangme who have contributed to lifting the image of the Gas and Dangmes in their communities.

The awards which will be held annually would seek to promote the personality of Ga and Dangme who have excelled in their respective vocations and helped to reduce poverty and hardship .

Nene Akuaku observed that Ghana had worked for years to achieve the peace and unity it enjoyed, and that it was imperative for everybody to contribute their quota to maintain it, stressing ‘’ our individual differences don’t permit us to misbehave but rather allow us to understand our uniqueness.

‘’ Brothers and sisters, the Ga-Dangme region cannot be complete without our Krobo brothers and sisters who were lured to join the Eastern Region. I seriously suggest that efforts should be made to bring them back into our fold,’’ he said.

The immediate past President of the Ga Dangme Council, Mr K.B. Asante, called on the chiefs to shun divisiveness and internecine strife which he said had the tendency to create confusion and misunderstanding.

According to him, unnecessary quarrels coupled with selfishness had undermined the cohesion of the Ga-Dangme community, adding ‘’ some of the chiefs who should be the beacons of unity and progress are often the centres of the darkness of intrigues and ignorance’’.

‘’ But without the wholehearted support of the chiefs, Dangmes cannot make their contribution to the progress of Ghana. Rather, they will become marginalised and eventually lose their lands, sea-shore and culture and even their language,’’ he said.

He, therefore, urged the chiefs to take advantage of the inauguration of the Regional House of Chiefs Indigenes Awards to encourage all Ga-Dangmes to come together to realise their individual and community potential.

Explaining the purpose of the awards, the Assistant Chairman of Events, Nii Teiko Kome, said the specific areas of consideration of awardees were, education, sanitation, community initiated projects and youth employment.

‘’ It is not about how rich you are but rather how much you have contributed with what you have acquired to uplift your own people from poverty and misery,’’ he said.

The Odehei Awards will be held in October to round off the Homowo of the Gas, the Asafotufiam of the Dangme and Nmayem festival of Shai Doku.