Kabilpe youth demonstrating in Central Gonja District
Chiefs and people of Mankpan Traditional Area in the Central Gonja District of the Northern Region are calling for the immediate removal of the District Chief Executive (DCE), Mahama Mustapha, over the relocation of a district hospital site.
The Mankpan Chiefs said a proposed site for the building of a district hospital in Kabilpe has been relocated to a new site alleging that the said site is in between a filling station and a river. The situation makes it unfit for the district hospital project.
The chiefs claimed the new site is owned by Dr. Abu Sakara Foster and can easily bring about future land litigation unlike the current site at Kabilpe which is owned by the traditional area.
According to the chiefs, in 2016, a land was acquired from them to build a district hospital at Kabilpe along the Buipe-Tamale highway.
They indicated that the contractor, Vamed Construction Company Limited, had carried out a feasibility test on the land and already spent millions of cedis on the project; hence any attempt to relocate the project to a different site would cost government a lot.
But to the surprise of the chiefs, the DCE, Mahama Mustapha, met with some chiefs of Mankpan and told them that there was pressure from the Buipewura, Mahama Jinapor, to relocate the hospital site to Buipe.
The chiefs said the DCE told them that the action of the Buipewura compelled him to travel to Accra to get further information about the said site and he was told that everything about the project was genuine.
The chiefs therefore called on President Akufo-Addo to send a team of experts to Central Gonja to survey the two lands and compare which is more suitable for the district hospital.
The Mankpan Traditional Area has stated that there shall be a mass action by the people of Central Gonja to resist any attempt by the DCE to put the lives of the people of Gonjaland in danger.
The secretary to the Mankpan Youth Association, Dawuda Dari, told DAILY GUIDE that the Buipewura was on record to have bragged on radio that his son (Abu Jinapor) is the third most powerful person in Ghana and that whatever he (Buipewura) does nobody can question his actions.
“Are the people of Mankpan Traditional Area not Ghanaians? Is it prudent for a hospital to be built near a gas filling station, fuel station and a river, and must the DCE allow pressure from an individual because his son is a deputy chief of staff ?” he asked.
Mr. Dawuda Dari claimed that the DCE got his position through the influence of the Chief of Staff, Abu Jinapor, and that is why his hands are ‘tight’ on the order of the Buipewura.
FROM Eric Kombat, Buipe