30th Annual Sammanpiid Festival Observed in Bawku

The Chiefs and people of the Bawku Traditional Area have celebrated their Annual Sammanpiid festival with a call on the people in the area to unite through their culture. 

Speaker after speaker said if they unite culturally, it will also lead to economic and political unity which will in a long run lead to a total unity of the area and the region at large. 

The Sammanpiid festival is a traditional post-harvest thanksgiving event meant to thank God and the ancestral spirits for a successful farming season. 

It is also an opportunity for the people to discuss other social and developmental issues affecting the people in the area. 

There are hosts of sacrifices followed by merry-making to climax it. 

GBC's Upper East Regional Correspondent Samuel Ayammah reports that the occasion brought together people from all walks of life including Chiefs, Queen Mothers, Ministers of State, MPs, MMDAs and Heads of Departments. 

Speaking on the theme ‘’Sustaining the Peace and Cultural Reforms in Kusau" the Upper East Regional Minister, Rockson Bukari, said the theme is not only appropriate and focused but it is a challenge to them as a people. 

He said it is apt because it challenges them to use what constitute their culture as a building block to their developmental aspirations. 

Mr. Bukari said as a result of the persistent communal conflict the Bawku and its environs has become a shadow of itself. 

He said children’s education is jeopardized as teachers and other workers prefer to work in other places aside Bawku. 

The Regional Minister commended the Bawku Inter-Ethnic peace committee for their efforts made so far to find a lasting solution to the conflict in the area. 

He said the government’s flagship programs such as the One-Village-One-Dam, One-District-One-Factory, Free Senior High Policy among others can be successfully implemented in a peaceful and conducive atmosphere.  

Mr. Bukari said almost all the districts and Municipalities in the region are engulfed with filth resulting in the occurrence of diseases such as cholera, malaria and other associated diseases.  

Meanwhile, festivals have become periods to chart development agenda, choose a theme to guide the celebration and thereby commit them to the theme for the rest of the coming year and thereafter. 

Culture is determining factor of the identity of any group of people and for the perpetuity of such an identity, culture must be sustained. 

Festivals in recent times have become a means of homecoming for those in the diaspora to renew their commitment to historicity. 

The Paramount Chief of Kusaug Traditional Area, Zugraan Naaba Abugrago Asigri Azoka, said the promotion of culture for development is non-negotiable in the country’s development. 

He pledged to help maintain and sustain the peace the people in the area are currently enjoying. 

He stated that the development of the area could rescue the people in the area from poverty, ignorance and diseases that have plagued them as a result of conflicts and mistrust between leaders and their subjects. 

Zugraan Naaba Abugrago Asigri Azoka, commended the Nana Addo led administration for the ongoing construction of the Bolgatanga-Bawku –Pulmakom road and the Tamde Irrigation Dam in Garu. 

He appealed to government to as a matter of urgency release funds to enable the contractor working on the Bolgatanga-Bawku –Pulmakom road to fix the road on schedule. 

The Paramount of the area thanked the President Nana Akufo -Addo for putting measures in place to make Tempane a district.  

Zugraan Naaba Abugrago Asigri Azoka, commended the Mamprusis and the other tribes for their diverse contributions in maintaining and sustaining the peace in area.

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