The Reverend Dr Ernest Adu-Gyamfi, Board Chairman, National Peace Council (NPC), has appealed to the media to allocate more airtime and space to trumpet its successes.
He said the Council was doing a lot behind the scenes to sustain Ghana’s peace and stability and did not only show up ahead of elections as was the perception of many Ghanaians.
“One of the major problems we have is competition with political discussions on tv and radio, specifically during the morning shows. There’s very little space in the media for us. Give us more space to highlight our successes and let people know what the NPC is doing,” he said.
The Chairman made the appeal on Tuesday during a Planning and Strategy Workshop with Regional Executive Secretaries of the NPC ahead of the 2024 Elections in Accra.
He explained that the Council was currently handling 298 cases of which only 20 were politically related, 202 pertained to Land and Chieftaincy disputes, whilst the remaining figure was for Illegal mining, amongst others.
Rev Dr Adu-Gyamfi said on April 4, 2024, a similar workshop was organised in Accra between members of the Governing Board and the Chairman of all the regional Peace Councils and today’s meeting was a follow-up.
He reminded them that the object of the NPC was to facilitate and develop mechanisms for conflict prevention, management, and resolution, and to build sustainable peace in the country.
“It is our role to encourage cooperation among all relevant stakeholders in peace building in Ghana by promoting cooperative problem-solving approaches to conflict and to institutionalise the processes of responding to conflicts to produce outcomes that will lead to conflict transformation, social, political, and religious reconciliation, and transformative dialogues.”
He said this year’s election presented another challenge that would test the resilience of Ghana’s democracy, as all elections had been in the past.
To ensure peace before, during, and after the elections, the Chairman said the NPC had lined up a series of activities, including the creation of an inter-party dialogue platform, which came out of the recommendation during the post-election dialogue held in Ada in the Greater Accra Region after the 2020 General Election.
“This platform, which is made up of national executives of the political parties, meets quarterly to discuss issues related to building peace and co-existence for effective multi-party democracy in our country,” he said.
He encouraged the Regional Executive Secretaries to stay focused in ensuring that the mandate of the NPC was executed without hindrance, protect the peace, stability and growth collectively built as a nation.
“Let us sustain the spirit of teamwork and growth we have collectively built as a nation. Let us sustain this as much as we can. It is my firm belief that Ghana will once again sail through this election and continue to be a beacon of hope for democracy in Africa.”
The Chairman urged Ghanaians to be law abiding, eschew electoral violence and let Ghana’s peace be paramount to them.
GNA