President John Dramani Mahama has nominated a 52-year-old professional teacher, Yakubu Yussif Castro, as Municipal Chief Executive for the West Gonja District in the Savannah Region.

The nominee hails from Busunu, a suburb of the municipality, and is being described in political circles as a gifted grassroots politician.

He is one of the early cadres and a member of the Democratic Youth League of Ghana (DYLG), who is said to be a good listener, a true NDC party man, and a unifier.

As a grassroots person, Mr Castro combined his professional and political careers during his first posting to Pepuso, a suburb of Buipe, on 10th October 1994, where he served as headteacher and the only teacher for four classes.

Despite his workload, he agreed to serve his party as the polling station secretary of Pepuso, in what is now the Central Gonja District.

He was later transferred to his hometown, Busunu, where he became secretary to the Presbyterian Primary Temporary Polling Station and subsequently, the Busunu D/A Polling Station. He held this role until the 2012 and 2016 elections, when he contested the Damongo Constituency parliamentary primaries on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), but lost both attempts to the current Managing Director of the Ghana Water Company Limited, Adam Mutawakilu, also known as Garlus.

Mr Castro did not give up but entered another race, this time for the position of constituency secretary of Damongo. He again lost, this time to the current secretary of the party, Braimah Alhassan.

According to some youth around him, his loss never deterred him from working for the NDC in the region.

Having lived and worked in the same environment for thirty-one (31) years—from 1994 to date—in the former Damongo District (now including Central and North Gonja), and with a solid understanding of the enclave, Mr Yakubu Yussif Castro is highly tipped as the man to manage the relatively tense political and chieftaincy atmosphere in Damongo. He is also expected to address the annual floods in Damongo and Busunu, while managing the expectations and concerns of the youth.