Chief of Tolon in the Dagbon Kingdom, Tolon-Naa, has commended Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) for successfully implementing the Sustainable Empowerment Peace Project (SEPP) aimed at consolidating peace in the Northern region.

Major (Rtd) Sulemana Abubakari said what the region needed now was peace to accelerate its development and commended implementers of the SEPP. 

He expressed hope that it would help people to know the real facts about the chieftaincy institution in the area to prevent misinformation and sustain the peace.

Major Abubakari was speaking at Tolon during a meeting with CSOs implementing the SEPP project in the area.

The SEPP project seeks to consolidate peace processes at major traditional areas, and it’s being implemented in the Northern Region by NORSAAC, Dagbon Forum, and West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, Ghana, with technical support from the National Peace Council and funded by OXFAM.

 In July, this year, under the SEPP, palace youth of major paramountcies in the region including Tolon, Yendi, and Nanton Traditional Areas, were trained on peaceful co-existence as part of efforts to consolidate the peace in the area.

 Implementers of SEPP, visited Tolon and Nanton to ascertain what the palace youth of those areas had been doing since the training, and what support to offer them to enhance their activities to consolidate the peace in those areas.

Palace youth at Tolon, during the meeting with CSOs implementing SEPP, said the project had enhanced inter-youth dialogues in the region, which was promoting cooperation and collaboration amongst them in various activities.

The Palace Youth group at Nanton also said they were now able to effectively verify, especially social media messages such that they would not take action on unfounded information, which would disturb the peace in the vicinity.

The Tolon-Naa said adequate resources were needed to effectively engage the youth of the area to restore lasting peace to the area, and appealed to government not to rest but support the CSOs with resources to work to fully consolidate the peace in Dagbon and the region as a whole.

He told the youth of the area that Dagbon had moved on and that there was the need for them to close their ranks and work together towards promoting development.

The Gender and Governance Manager of NORSAAC, Kawusada Abubakari, said the stories shared by the various palace youth groups showed progress, and that SEPP partners would build on the success stories to further consolidate the peace in the region.