Peace Council to meet political parties over intemperate language

The National Peace Council (NPC) is set to meet the leadership of all political parties over the spate of intemperate language by political actors.

The Council said it was worried about the utterances of some political actors in recent times and that the meeting would reinforce the commitments made by the political parties towards maintaining peace ahead of the 2024 general election.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Accra, the Chairman of NPC, Rev Dr Ernest Adu-Gyamfi said the Council had received “a lot of footage” about some pronouncements by various political actors and working towards addressing the concerns.

He said the statements “are not good for us” and urged political actors to be decorous in their utterances and “stay within their mandate.”

“The political parties must understand that this is the only country that we have and there is the need for them to play within the space that we have created for ourselves,” Rev. Adu-Gyamfi said.

Some comments by the Minister of Food and Agriculture and MP for Abetifi, Mr Bryan Acheampong, have sparked public outrage recently.

While addressing supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) at Mpraeso in the Eastern Region on Saturday, Mr Acheampong was reported to have said that the NPP government would not hand over power to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and that they [NPP] would do everything possible to remain in power.

The NDC has since called for Mr Acheampong’s arrest while the NPP has defended his comments, describing the “attack” on the Minister of Agriculture as “unwarranted.”

To this end, the NPC Chairman said “Elections are won at the polling station so how do you overturn elections; it is not possible. Once the constituency election is certified, we are done.

“So, there are certain things that the public should just throw away. But these statements are a concern to us and there is the need to bring the parties together again,” Rev. Adu-Gyamfi said.

He urged the media to desist from highlighting intemperate language by political actors in the national discourse.

The Council said prominence given to such statements could embolden the perpetrators and undermine the country’s hard-fought democracy and peaceful coexistence.

“The media should sometimes do their own censorship. Certain things create unnecessary tension and we do not need to highlight them,” Rev. Adu-Gyamfi said.

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