Nana Nketsia weeps for the people of Western Region

By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot

The Omanhene of the Esikado Traditional Area in the Western Region, Nana Kobina Nketsia V has wept publicly for communities in the oil find areas of the region.

According to him, the region has an abundance of subsoil riches and yet wallows in poverty.

He added the most of the cities in the region are facing mal-development, collapsing of businesses, high unemployment, urban un-planning, among others and yet the government is doing nothing about.

Nana Nketsia V made these pronouncements when he chaired the opening ceremony of a two-day annual Research and Advocacy Organisation (RAO) on oil and gas governance in Accra, yesterday.

Nana Nketsia V who spoke philosophically, lamented that “Any chief would become worried over the future of his people, most especially after the disempowering of the indigenous institutions”.

Amazingly, the Omanhene pointed out that there were oil and gas talk shops sprouting all over and confessed that his region still wallowed in ignorance.

Explaining that, the discussions are usually very far away from the people in the Western Region. It is usually good to keep a people in ignorance to exploit them, he stressed.

Nana Nketsia V suggested to the government to introduce compulsory course on Oil and Human Ecology for all first students in the Ghana’s universities for proper understanding of the new oil industry.

Notwithstanding, the high revenue potential from the exploitation of natural resources, citizens of many natural resource-endowed countries continue to wallow in abject poverty and misery.

Nana Nketsia V observed that oil in West Africa Sub-region had brought out the worst of humanity fuelling corruption and conflict.

Of course, cursory scanning of Ghanaian socio-political one can perceive the huge potential for Ghana going the same way, he revealed.

He asked “Would tomorrow come. And if tomorrow does come what it will bring. Will it bring what Ghanaians had hoped for at independence but has virtually become a quest for a chimera”.

Nana Nketsia V told the well-attended gathering that they could only muse over missed opportunities and survey with sadness and disgust the unending changes of regimes where each one pledging a cleansing, even a redemption, only to commit daylight plunder of our common wealth.

In addition there has been rapid decay of our social ethos with an accompanying moral breakdown-violence, abuse, crime; obscenity, deception and selfishness seem to have taken such a vicious hold over the society that it is increasingly becoming difficult to ascertain Ghanaian social values.

Spiritually, he underscored that we are working hard at externalizing even our hereafter, saying “The art of double speaking is becoming a national virtue and the future has seemed very bleak”.

Rather, they have weakened the social fabric and have shaken the very foundations of this nation, emphasizing that we appeared to have become a generation of nation wreckers and not builders.

Responding to Nana Nketsia V concerns, the Minister of Energy in a speech read for him, indicated that the government was fully aware of these challenges and was making efforts to over them.

Consequently, the ministry is putting together a strategy to train and educate technical professionals to staff the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) and other relevant institutions.

Also, he noted that the government was committed to ensuring transparency and accountability in all sectors of the economy including the petroleum operations in the country.

Ghanadot