State of emergency lifted in northern Ghana

A year-long state of emergency in the Dagbon traditional area of northern Ghana, was lifted on Tuesday after Ghana's ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) failed to secure the required 101 votes in the 200-member parliament to retain it. The state of emergency was imposed in March last year following the murder of the Dagbon king Ya Na Yakubu Andani and 29 others in a chieftaincy dispute between the Andani and Abudu royal clans at Yendi, in northern Ghana. It had been renewed every month until Tuesday when the second deputy speaker Ken Dzirasah called for a head count after a heated debate on the motion tabled by Defence Minister Kwame Addo Kufuor. The ruling NPP recorded only 88 votes in favour of the state of emergency while 73 members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) voted against it. Under the state of emergency, a curfew and censorship on news on and about the Dagbon crisis was imposed. All news had to be cleared by the minister of information before it was published. There was also a ban on mass gatherings and rallies. A security officer in Ghana's northern town of Tamale told IRIN that the lifting of the state of emergency did not mean that the soldiers would go back to the barracks. They would still maintain their presence in the area until a lasting solution was found to the crisis, he said. In a related development, the feuding clans agreed on 13 April on a peace deal to end the Dagbon conflict, at separate meetings with Addo Kufuor. The defence minister told journalists after the meeting that the factions had resolved to denounce the use of violence to settle the dispute and abide by the judicial process underway. They also called for the process to be speeded up, and recommended the use of traditional and customary processes and procedures to resolve the dispute, pledging to ensure that peace was maintained and fully restored to the Dagbon Traditional Area to enhance its socio-economic development. Addo Kufuor regretted that since the problem started over a year ago, economic activities in the area had slowed down and no development had taken place. He said investors who had previously expressed interest to invest in the area had all withdrawn to the detriment of the people of Dagbon.