President John Evans Atta Mills has restated his determination to deal “appropriately and decisively” with miscreants who will want to hold the nation hostage through the creation of fear and panic.Addressing a colourful durbar in Bolgatanga to climax the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Upper East Region on Saturday, the President gave an assurance that those who chose to indulge in fear-mongering would fail.“I want to send a message to those people: They will not succeed. Let me repeat: Those who want to destabilise the process will not succeed.I have directed the law enforcement agencies to deal appropriately and decisively with those who decide that peace is not what they want,” he said.The celebration, which was held on the theme: “Upper East @ 50-Harnessing our endowed resources for accelerated development through education”, also attracted senior government officials, Ministers of State, Members of Parliament, Members of the Council of State, Governors of two provinces from neighbouring Burkina Faso, Municipal and District Chief Executives, Heads of Departments, Assembly Members, the Clergy and the Canadian High Commissioner to Ghana, Madam Trudy Keruighan.According to President Mills, the government over the past few days, was unhappy with activities of some people who had taken it upon themselves to create fear and panic in the society and engender a feeling of insecurity among the people and vowed that the state would deal with those who had taken that line of action.“We may have our own reasons for trying to instil fear in people, but at the end of the day, the lies will be unearthed and we will see the truth for what it is. Who is going to invest in a nation that has a feeling of insecurity? Who is going to bring his resources into our dear nation if indeed our people live in fear?”“People want to create panic and fear and do not want the progress of this nation even though they are preaching from the rooftops that they are interested in the development of our people. Such people are only pursuing their narrow and myopic interests and we will not allow them,” he added.President Mills noted with delight the gradual return of peace to the Bawku Municipality after several months of intermittent conflict and implored the chiefs and people of the region to continue to use dialogue to overcome their differences.“We shall review the initiatives and measures taken in Bawku and very soon, we will all begin to see people in that area joining hands and working together towards a common purpose,” he said.Touching on the pending drilling of the first oil later this year, President Mills said although the expectation was high, Ghanaians must manage those expectations, since the anticipated revenue inflow would not materialise overnight.“There are people who are thinking that come November-December, this year, Ghana will be awash with oil resources. This is not the case, we have to go gingerly.It will take us some time to be able to get the oil revenue which we are going to use in the productive sectors of the economy. We came to meet a difficult economy but we are determined to put things right to make Ghana a better place for all,” the President said.He disclosed that his recent trips to China and Japan that saw the signing of several agreements, would give a major boost to the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA).The Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Mark Woyongo, commended governments, both past and present, for their immense contribution towards the development of the region.He said the current government had provided the region with an Information Communication Technology (ICT) centre with 50 computers as a 50th anniversary gift.Mr Woyongo also mentioned the new street lighting project and the rehabilitation of some government buildings and urban roads as some of the efforts to give the regional capital a facelift.Mr Woyongo reminded the people of the region that it would require a peaceful atmosphere to attract investors and, therefore, urged them to eschew tribalism, sectarianism and factionalism.
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