The Northern Students Union has called on people from the three northern regions to come together and embrace the things that unite them.
The Union said it was disheartening that the Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions were associated with violence while their common enemy was poverty.
Mr Hamid Ibn Kailan, the outgoing National President of the Northern Students Union made the call during the swearing in of new executives of the Union, in Wa, on Saturday.
He said if the people of the north need to fight, then they must arm themselves against poverty and restore the dignity of the people
and not fight among themselves and destroy their human resource base, which was critical for their development.
Mr Kailan asked northerners to pre-occupy their minds with what they can do to make the north a better place for their young ones, to
stop the youth from leaving the area to seek greener pastures elsewhere.
“How can we develop if we keep on burning the little we have toiled so much to build”, Mr Kailan asked.
“Is it only northerners who support political parties, is it only in the north that we have chiefs and different ethnic groups?” he
quizzed.
Mr Kailan blamed northern politicians for failing the people and warned the youth, who were beginning life not to allow people who had
outlived their usefulness to deceive them to die in wars.
Mr Abdul-Karim Kipo the incoming National President of the Union, tasked the youth to see themselves as the turning point, by increasingly assuming leadership positions and acting as agents of change in the communities.
“We need to educate ourselves on our rights, privileges and responsibilities and shun greed, ethnicity, tribal domination, apathy,
indifference and arrogance, so that we can embrace change in its entirety to become masters of our own destiny, instead of being subjects as we are today”, Mr Kipo said.
Mr Kipo gave assurance that the Union would be vocal and responsive to development issues and policies that did not favour the north.
He said northerners were the most affected, in terms of political violence, and that, conflicts that were known to be chieftaincy and
land disputes had now turned into political conflicts.
The Union, he said, now has a critical role to play in the maintenance of peace and advocating for development and asked students
from the three regions to be more committed to serving the Union and Ghana as a whole.
Mr Ibrahim Yakubu was elected as the Secretary of the Union, Madam Salifu Nam Ben Mariam, Treasurer, Madam Dauda Nimatu, Women’s
Commissioner and Mr Yahaya Hakim, Coordinating Secretary.