The Centre for Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies, has admonished traditional authorities in the Gonja Traditional area, to resort to the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), to address the pockets of conflicts that have engulfed the area for decades.
According to the Centre, traditional leaders must exhibit good leadership skills to promote peaceful co-existence among people. They must also manage conflicts through the right mechanism to accelerate development.
Executive Director of the Centre, Reverend Father Clement Aapengnuo, said this at a workshop by the Gonjaland Youth Association at Damango, in the Savannah Region.
The workshop aimed to build the capacities of the chiefs, queen mothers and opinion leaders in the area.
The Savannah region is well positioned to contribute to and benefit from the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda. However, accelerating the sustainable development can only take place in a peaceful atmosphere.
The recent chieftaincy disputes in Gonjaland are a reminder that peace building is a process and not an event.
Gonjaland was once the oasis of a peaceful chieftaincy institution with a solid traditional system for managing succession disputes.
The situation is not the same today as conflicts including chieftaincy, land and ethnic have taken over the land depriving people of their livelihoods and dignity.
The President of the Gonjaland Youth Association, Osman Mohammed Amin, said the Association is working in collaboration with stakeholders to review its Constitution and the 1930 Constitution of the Gonja kingdom.
He said the move is to preserve and sustain the culture and tradition of the area.
Executive Director of the Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies Centre, Revered Father Clement Aapengnuo, said it is the duty of traditional leaders to determine the politics, economic and technology of traditional settings.
However, poverty and the thirst for power has change the chieftaincy institutions and rendered it a non-performing one.
Vice President of the Gonja Traditional Council, Buipewura Jinapor, commended the Gonjaland Youth Association for organizing the workshop since it is the first of its kind in the history of Gonjaland.
He called for unity among the chiefs and charged them to be inclusive, participatory and consultative leaders.
Some of the chiefs and opinion leaders raised concerns ranging from succession, land disputes, duties of a chief, illegal rosewood activities in the area and enskinment issues.
