The Regional Executive Committee of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) says Abu Ramadan, National Youth Organizer of the PNC, and his cohorts showed hatred for the North when they said the upgrade of the Tamale Airport was unnecessary.

In a statement copied to Myjoyonline, the committee said the comments were regrettable and people who made them ought to have known better.

The statement said “these utterances have reached a xenophobic crescendo which is not only insulting of the dignity and personality of the northerner but also has the tendency of misrepresenting people of northern descent as second fiddles within our society.”

The committee is therefore calling on all northerners to rise up against persons whose objective is to deny the region of strategic investment and development.

Read full statement below

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, the Regional Executive Committee of the NDC has noted with regret the recent Unprintable pronouncements from some individuals in our society who ought to have known better but unfortunately, these individuals are deliberately contorting the relevance of the ongoing up-grading of the Tamale Airport to an international status merely for their selfish, narrow and parochial interest.

This may not just be a marketing of their ignorance but an exhibition of their deep seated hatred for the people of the North.  We suspect that some of them may equally be motivated by their attempt to please their paymasters.

These utterances have reached a xenophobic crescendo which is not only insulting of the dignity and personality of the northerner but also has the tendency of misrepresenting people of the Northern decent as second fiddles within our society.

Reference can be made to Dr. Busia’s comment during the commissioning of the Ghana Commercial Bank office complex in Bolgatanga in the early 1970s and Prof. Adu Buahene’s statements in Diare on the irrelevance of electricity (National grid) to the North.

Whiles we are unwilling to revisit these unprintable words, we wish to state emphatically that enough is enough and that embarking on similar trajectory by position holders in some political parties is especially abhorable.

Not too long ago, precisely on the 17/09/2014 one Alhaji Umar Bodinga, the first Vice Chairman of NPP in the Eastern Region, ignorantly and callously made statements to the effect that the upgrading of the Tamale Airport to an International status is a misplaced priority and the NPP does not support it.

This was reechoed by Nana Akomea, the Communication director of the NPP and repeated by Michael Omari Wadie on TV Gold.

Could these people be said to be interested in balanced developments? Do they really have the people of the North at heart? Not at all.

Sadly, the NPP party has not come out to condemn or distanced themselves from these regrettable statements from stalwarts of the party.

It therefore mean that the party and its flag bearer have subscribed to these statements
Ladies and Gentlemen, only yesterday, one boy-called Abu Ramadan who is said to be the National Youth Organizer of the PNC shamelessly repeated the said unfortunate and xenophobic chorus by his pay masters, entrenching the view that the construction of the Tamale International Airport was a misplaced priority.

We want to believe that, this statement does not reflect the official position of the PNC. We can tell from the conduct of the said boy, Abu Ramadan that his conscience has been bought and we therefore call on the leadership of the PNC to distance themselves from those comments.

We also call on the said Abu Ramadan to render an unqualified apology to the good people of the North and the NDC Government for his errand utterances.

We equally call on the good people of the North to rise up against characters of his kind whose object is simply to deny us of strategic investment and developments and therefore entrench us in abject poverty reducing us to hewers of wood and drawers of water.

ABDUL-MUMIN ALHASSAN FUSEINI
REG. COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER