Fulani herdsmen asked to vacate Bongo-Soe community

The Chief and people of the Bongo-Soe community in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region, have given a one-month ultimatum for Fulani herdsmen residing in the community to pack out.

Mr Vitus Azeem, a native of the Bongo-Soe community and former Executive Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), announced the warning on behalf of the Chief and people at a news conference.

He said the residents, had complained that the nomadic herdsmen had illegally occupied their farmlands and were terrorising them.

There was a violent clash between the community members and the Fulani headsmen on Tuesday, March 28, 2023, because a young man from Bongo-Soe who went fishing was allegedly beaten by some Fulani herdsmen in the community, he said.

Mr Atiah Nsoh, the victim, had a fracture on his right leg while his motorcycle, mobile phone, and an undisclosed amount of money were taken from him.

Mr Azeem said it was alleged that the Fulani herdsmen initially wanted to slaughter Mr Nsoh, but a more reasonable member of the trio objected to that, and they tried to castrate him, but he resisted, and they beat him up.

“We wish to state that this is not the first time that some Fulani herdsmen have attacked a member of the community. There were instances where some women were raped, and some cattle stolen from the community”.

In addition, an agent of the Bongo Rural Bank and some Mobile Money vendors in the village were robbed by persons suspected to be Fulani herdsmen, he added.

Mr Azeem explained that several people from the Fulani settlement and the Bongo-Soe community sustained various degrees of injuries due to the clashes, following which 11 youth from the area were arrested and put in Police custody. He said nine out of the 11 people arrested had since been released.

“We demand that the Police investigate and bring the perpetrators of the heinous crime to book; that the Assembly foots the medical bills of the injured young man and retrieve his motorcycle and mobile phone for him,” he stated.

He said the residents were expecting the Fulani herdsmen to vacate the Bongo-Soe community in a month’s time because they had overstayed their welcome and were trying to take possession of the community.

Mr Azeem said the disgruntled community members of Bongo-Soe were not happy that a Fulani chief who was enskinned by the paramount chief of the Bongo Traditional Area, Naba Baba Salifu Alemyaarum, regarded himself to be at the same level as the native community chiefs.

“This Fulani chief has boasted that he and the chiefs in the village were all enskinned by the Paramount Chief and so they were not superior to him and cannot control him”.

A petition that was sent to the Bongo District Security Committee in June 2021 and a follow up as a reminder in January 2022 “on the behavior of the Fulani herdsmen,” had not received any acknowledgment or response, he said.

When the Ghana News Agency contacted Ms Rita Atanga, the District Chief Executive of Bongo, she said DISEC had visited the victim and the Fulani community after the clash.

She said the “Assembly is not sleeping over the matter” and DISEC would work on their demands to find a lasting solution to the issue.

She appealed for cooperation from both factions to ensure the issue was amicably resolved.

The paramount chief of the Bongo Traditional Area, Naba Alemyaarum, when contacted, declined to speak on the issue, but admonished both factions to allow peace to prevail in the area.