The Executive Director of the West African Network for Peacebuilding, (WANEP) Mr. Emmanuel Bombande, says the search for peace in Dagbon would remain elusive if stakeholders do not attend the process with mutual desires. He said not only should the traditional factions in the raging dispute demonstrate a mutual desire and participation in the search for peace, they must also be brought together with political interests to pursue the peace agenda. Bombande was speaking on Joy Newsnite Monday after new agitations emerged over the weekend following the renovation by the Andani gate of what is said to be a sacred room at the Gebwaa Palace where final rites are performed for the enskinment of a chief. The Abudu gate has condemned the move and vowed it would resist any attempt by the Andani to occupy the palace. The two sides have had long-standing chieftaincy disputes, culminating in the assassination in 2001, of the Ya Na Yakubu Andani II, then Dagbon overlord. “First of all we have to appreciate that there is always a challenge in any peace building process when the search for peace is not mutual.” “Whatever action is taken must be with the consent of the other side as part of the process…If any party in the conflict acts unilaterally and takes decisions on their own, it deepens suspicions and mistrust and makes the process very difficult to manage and for that reason, if you look at the search for peace in Dagbon, and particularly the challenge in implementing the roadmap, the challenge has always been how the two sides can mutually engage. One side takes an action, the other one refuses and negates it, and it goes round in circles and that circle can now become vicious…” Supporting the need for politics and chieftaincy to mutually engage in the seemingly elusive search for peace to Dagbon, Bombande said multiple approaches are strategic to securing what is desirable in the search for peace out of a conflict situation, and said the worse thing one can do in the search for peace is to limit your options. He described politics as the fuel in the Dagbon crisis and said consensus can best be built between political interests and traditional factions if they positively influence each other. Story by Isaac Yeboah/Myjoyonline.com