Alhaji Namong said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency after a Bunkpurugu dialogue with the feuding family of the Jafouk and the Jamong in Tamale organized by the West Africa Network for Peace-building (WANEP)-Ghana and funded by the USAID under its Northern Ghana Governance Activity (NGGA) project.

WANEP is part of an NGO consortium implementing the NGGA five-year USAID-funded project with the goal of ensuring more responsive governance for improved agricultural development in Ghana.

The Bunkpurugu Dialogue, which was on the theme: “Promoting peace through dialogue”, was attended by elders from the Jafouk and the Jamong families who had been engaging in violent confrontation leading to destruction of life and some properties in the past. The dialogue was also WANEP’s effort of increasing community dialogue and consensus building to prevent conflict and to ensure sustainable development in agriculture.

 Alhaji Namong said; “Avoid the violence and let us unite as one people to ensure that our communities are well developed to give employment to our children who will take care of us in future” adding that there is no substitute for peace”. He commended WANEP and its partners for the peace initiative saying, “Bringing the feuding families under one roof to ensure that there is peace among us is a giant step in bringing peace to the area and I am glad for the process”.

 “We have come to the realization that we are one people from one ancestral lineage and there is no need to fight one another. We need to be united and fight the enemy outside but not to fight the family member within”, he emphasized”. The participants during a group presentation attributed some of the problems leading to family dispute as failure of families to have holistic discussions on effects of conflicts, failure of the two families to eschew anger and seek peace, failure to adhere to parental advice and lack of respect for traditional authority.

Mr Albert Yelyang, National Network Coordinator of WANEP-Ghana called for effective communication among clans to help stop conflicts and advised feuding families to focus more on things that connect them as one people as a means of living together in harmony.

He said WANEP would continue to work tirelessly under the NGGA project especially in conflict areas to have amicable solutions to problems leading to the conflicts. WANEP-Ghana had earlier brought the feuding factions among Nanumbas in the Northern Region together in Tamale and discussed the way forward in addressing the conflicts to pave way for development.