By Ewoenam Kpodo | Voltaonlinegh.com |
A secessionist group, Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF) has warned government and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to halt the proposed oil exploration activities in the Nkwanta North District of the Volta Region.
The group in a release signed by it convener, George Nyakpo said Nkwanta North in the Volta Region falls in the boundaries of Western Togoland and cautioned government to stay away from exploring for oil there.
The group’s release was in response to Voltaonlinegh.com’s story on October 4 about the proposed oil exploration activities in the district. The District Chief Executive for the area, Jakayi Jackson during a town hall meeting at Sibi informed residents of the presence of the GNPC officials and solicited their prayers for successful activities.
READ ALSO: GNPC Begins Oil Exploration in Nkwanta North
The HSGF was of the view that per the 1956 plebiscite which unionised Trans-Volta Togoland (now a region) to the Gold Coast, now Ghana, Government of Ghana cannot touch the mineral resources or its boundaries without citizens of the land sanctioning it.
“The area in question is a Mandated Territory by the Leagues of Nations /UN, under the Trusteeship Agreement pending the full realisation of the independence of the Western Togoland. Those resources are what will be used to take care of our citizens and Ghana cannot lay her hands on it.”
“We hereby, wish to inform and caution the government of Ghana, GNPC and any entity to as a matter of urgency put a stop to any other activities leading to the said exercise and any other exercise which we have not sanctioned,” the release noted.
The release added that the proposed creation of the Oti Region out of Volta “is highly aggressive because it is a clear land grab behaviour since the area is part of the Togoland under British administration originally recognised in 1922 as Western Togoland when the obnoxious division of mother Torgo was done by an invading Franco-British Army in a war in which the land and its people had no hand at all.”
In a recent interview, Nana Mprah Besemuna III, Paramount Chief of Krachi and also Chairman of the Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) of Oti Movement, a group advocating for the creation of the proposed region warned the Ewes in the southern and middle parts of the region from laying claim on the northern part saying, “we don’t know the Ewes until 1950s when the Germans brought us together and we had brought clearly defined boundaries that we only joined the Ewes, we were not under them.”
READ ALSO: Krachiwura Cautions Ewe Chiefs against Laying Claim on Volta North Territory
The Homeland Study Group Foundation was formed by secessionists to unite all the supporters of Togoland. The movement made waves last year when police arrested some of its leaders on March 7, in Ho for agitating for the restoration of so called Western Togoland as a state and a declaration of independence on March 9.
The group has since been campaigning for the Volta Region in the southeast and parts of Eastern, Northern and Upper East regions of Ghana to join the new state.
Source: www.voltaonlinegh.com
