The Vice President, Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia, says the common enemies of Muslims are illiteracy, disease, and poverty.

These enemies, he said, require that all Islamic sects put aside their differences and unite to fight for the development of the people.

The coordinator for Zongo and inner-city development, Alhaji Ben Abdallah Banda, gave this advice on behalf of Dr Bawumia during a speech at the Conference of Regional Chief Imams in Sunyani in the Bono Region.

Addressing the Conference, Mr Banda said, “For the Muslim Ummah, our common enemies to me are three: illiteracy, disease, and poverty. Our road is bad, how do we as a collective deal with it?

“We have no water, we have no electricity, we have no schools, we need scholarships, issues bordering on livelihood.

“I am foreseeing a day when all these sectorial leaders will sit on a table, jaw-jawing, and put behind us the diversity in Islam, our seeming differences and see ourselves as Muslims, and collectively fight these our common enemies.”

The coordinator for Zongo and inner-city development also urged all Muslims to show more interest in politics which influences policies and development, emphasisng that politics brings about development.

“Politics impacts our livelihoods, … the policies that government day in day out fashions out, we need to be interested and be asking ourselves whether the policies are policies that we, as Muslims, can also contribute.”

Also in attendance at the Conference was the Bono Regional Minister, Justina Owusu Banahene.

In her remarks, she stressed the importance of education for development and appealed to all Imams to take extra interest in the education of their wards, by collaborating with the Islamic education unit to ensure quality teaching and learning in Islamic schools across the country.

She also called attention to various worrying occurrences in the country such as murders, bribery, and corruption, religious fanaticism, and the destruction of farms by nomadic herdsmen, emphasising that these incidents had security implications.

For this reason, the Bono Regional Minister pleaded with the Imams to address these issues in meetings at their various mosques to enable peace and order to prevail in the country.

The meeting of the Conference of Regional Chief Imams was a two-day event, that afforded participants the chance to discuss, approve and adopt their draft constitution that bordered on peace, unity, and development in Muslim communities in the country.

The Conference had Imams and their representatives from all the regions in Ghana, a representative of the National Chief Imam, as well as leaders of the various Islamic sects, chiefs, and other Islamic organisations in attendance.