{"id":151736,"date":"2015-09-15T14:00:09","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T14:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=151736"},"modified":"2015-09-15T14:35:29","modified_gmt":"2015-09-15T14:35:29","slug":"revealed-british-deliberately-under-educated-the-north-prof-delle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2015\/09\/revealed-british-deliberately-under-educated-the-north-prof-delle\/","title":{"rendered":"Revealed: British deliberately under educated the north \u2013 Prof. Delle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veteran politician and aspiring National Chairman<\/a><\/strong><\/span> for the Convention People\u2019s Party (CPP), Professor Edmund Delle has blamed Britain, Ghana\u2019s last colonial master, for the high illiteracy rate in the northern part of the country.<\/p>\n

According him, the British government, after colonizing Ghana [then Gold Coast] in 1821, deliberately under educated the people of the north and did not allow them to mingle with people in the south.<\/p>\n

He opined that the move was a policy the British government implemented in its colonies including Nigeria.<\/p>\n

Prof. Delle made the claims \u00a0on Time with the Legends segment<\/strong> on the Citi Breakfast Show.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chief Dombo and Northern People’s Party<\/strong><\/p>\n

[contextly_sidebar id=”a1JKzDQ1KB5fniBX2xr57Ckp0WuieMfw”]Professor Delle explained that, during moves to elevate Ghana into an independent state, the Northern People\u2019s Party\u00a0was formed and\u00a0led by Chief S.D. Dombo [Upper West Region], \u00a0to fight for the interest of the people in the area.<\/p>\n

He said, Chief Dombo and his team argued that the North, would be disadvantaged\u00a0if added to Ghana,\u00a0thus demanded to be made a federal state.<\/p>\n

\u201cChief Dombo [and his team] understood the movement of our political scene and their idea was…if they joined Ghana as a group to have independence, those of us who were from the North were going to suffer because if you read the history, we were British protectorate and we felt that since we were not as developed as the south if we were merged with the Southern sector which was very advanced, it would have affected us,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

According to professor Delle, \u201cit was not even possible for northerners to come to the south; that is what people don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe British never allowed us to come to the south. You can\u2019t even count more than three people who came for education there. Only a few examples like Dr. Andani and a few of them came to Achimota because we were relegated to the north because they didn\u2019t want us to mix up with the people in the south. They wanted to keep the northern territories from the colonies just for us to become the hewers and drawers of water. That was their intention. To under educate the people of the north,\u201d Prof. Delle added.<\/p>\n

The veteran politician said \u201cIt was only the CPP [led by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah] that came to change things in the north otherwise I would have been a farmer by now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Factional politics<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prof. Delle also revealed that factional politics was very pervasive before and during independence, saying Ghana\u2019s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah tried to reverse the trend by uniting the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why the Nkrumah government tried to convince them [people of the North] that we have a small country, Ghana, so if we divide ourselves to little pieces how are we going to survive and I\u2019m so happy that his idea prevailed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was able to convince the northerners and told them that \u201cwe should make sure that we have a unitary form of government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain he made it clear to us that if we want to start independence with this small groupings and making parties regionally and according to religion, so regionally and religion these are the things Nkrumah succeeded in breaking and making a law which is hailed in Africa. But you cannot make a party in using regions, tribes or religion and I think these are one of the things that helped can and it was eliminated.\u201d<\/p>\n

About Prof. Delle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prof. Edmund \u00a0Delle is a professor of dermatology at the University for Development Studies. He served as the chairman of the CPP from 2003 to 2007.<\/p>\n

He is staging a come back in a bid to be elected as the chairman of the party for the second time.<\/p>\n

He told Citi Breakfast Show<\/strong> host, Bernard Koku Avle that he decided to come back for the position because members of the party had approached him with the offer.<\/p>\n

Click below to listen to full interview:<\/strong><\/p>\n