Paramount Chief of the Bongo Traditional Area, Naba Baba Salifu Alemyarum says he was the brain behind the elevation of the area to the status of a district in 1988.
Speaking on his contribution to his Chiefdom even before ascending to occupy the paramount skin, Naba Salifu Alemyarum said he led a spirited a campaign for the creation of the Bongo District out of the then Frafra District.
“I was the architect behind the creation of the Bongo District in 1988,” he told James Nana Tsiquaye.
He recounted that while working as a Zonal Coordinator of the Committee for Defence of the Revolution (CDR) of the PNDC government, he was informed about the government’s decentralisation programme and encouraged to bid for Bongo to be made an autonomous district.
“When I was the zonal coordinator for CDR somewhere along the line in 1987, there was a Government circular that demanded that decentralization should take effect and in that regard, areas that could stand as a district should apply,” he narrated.
Adding, “By then, the late Michael Abudu was the District Coordinating Director for the Frafra District Assembly; Bongo, Bolga, Nagodi, Sakote, Tongo were all together in the Frafra District. So he called me to his office and showed me the circular and asked me to apply because Bongo qualifies”.
He heeded and, with the help of the Coordinating Director of the Frafra District Assembly, who hailed from the area, drafted a proposal and got the relevant stakeholders to pend their signatures for consideration by the government’s Decentralisation Committee.
Naba Salifu recalled that although he and his team were able to successfully defend their demand for a district before the committee in Accra, the area fell short of the required population of between 75,000 and 100,000 residents.
However, determined to get his people a district, he would mount a spirited defence, arguing that the population census undertaken before then failed to enumerate parts of the area and that even areas where the census took place, a large number of the residents had emigrated to other parts of the country due to lack of opportunities in the area.
The committee, he recollects, got persuaded by this and gave the greenlight for the creation of the Bongo District in 1988.
Now the traditional ruler of the area, Naba Salifu Alemyarum said “If nobody gives me credit, I will give myself credit”.
