President John Dramani Mahama has expressed deep concern over renewed clashes in the Sola-Tuna-Kalba and Bole districts of the Savannah Region, which have claimed more than 30 lives.
Speaking at a media engagement at the Presidency on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, the President described the conflict as tragic, especially since it erupted over what he termed a “small plot of land, like the land you put a container on.”
He recounted how a simple disagreement over ownership of a parcel of land escalated into gunfire, leaving families and communities torn apart.
“These are two groups that have lived in peace for so many years and are intermarried. It is most unfortunate,” he said.
President Mahama highlighted his own diverse heritage, part Gonja, Vagla, and Safalba as an example of Ghana’s interwoven ethnic fabric. “If my ethnic groups are fighting, it means my body should be fighting with itself because my blood is made up of all those ethnic groups,” he remarked.
To address the crisis, he announced the formation of a mediation team, with the involvement of the two area MPs as ex-officio members.
The team’s mandate, he explained, extends beyond mediation to include reconciliation. “We’ve given them full authority to meet both sides, perform purification rites to cleanse the land of bloodshed, and recommend ways to rebuild relations,” he stated.
President Mahama also condemned lingering feudal practices such as whipping or extorting livestock from community members at chief palaces, calling for reforms in line with modern society.
Although he has not yet visited the conflict zone, the President revealed he has been quietly working behind the scenes to ease tensions.
He disclosed that he persuaded the Yagbonwura not to travel to the conflict area, a move that could have escalated the situation and restrained the Bolewura from intervening directly.
Security services, he added, have been resourced to begin returning displaced persons to their communities.
“We need peace to develop. Our common enemy is poverty, not each other. Savannah is one of the poorest regions in the country, and so we must rather be fighting poverty than fighting each other,” President Mahama stressed.
