'BE GUIDED BY EXPERIENCE OF OTHER NATIONS' (PAGE 40)

Story: Samuel Duodu, Sunyani

Ghanaians should be guided by the experiences of other nations on the African continent where there are conflicts as a result of elections, in order to continue to safeguard the peace and stability of the country, the Executive Director of Peace and Violence-Free Advocacy Foundation International (PEVFAF), Mr Frank Opoku Adjapong, has said.
He stressed that Ghanaians must not allow their political affiliations to divide them and create tension in the country, since politics was not about enemies and friends, but rather for the welfare of the people and the socio-economic advancement of the nation.
“We must, therefore, let our political persuasions guide us to make the right choices in the forthcoming general election that would result in an improvement in the living conditions of the ordinary Ghanaian, as well as the forward march of the nation, than to see it as a fight,” he emphasised
Mr Adjapong gave the advice at the 12th bi-annual conference of the Mid-West Ghana Adventist Choir Union at the Sunyani Jubilee Park in the Brong Ahafo Region.
His talk formed part of PEVFAF’s advocacy programme towards a violence-free elections this year.
PEVFAF, a non-partisan, non-section and non-profit-making organisation devoted to peace and violence-free Ghana and Africa at large, has so far taken their campaign towards violence-free elections to several Pentecostal, Charismatic and Orthodox churches in and outside the Brong Ahafo Region.
The executive director noted that the organisation was not only for a violence-free elections this year, but also to ensure that acts of violence were removed from the body politic, football, and religious and ethnic matters.
He said no society would achieve progress where there was violence, chaos and confusion.
Mr Adjapong, therefore, urged Ghanaians to embrace dialogue as a means of resolving their differences than to resort to violence, which had the potential to threaten the peace and stability of the nation.
He also appealed to all factions engaged in land and chieftaincy disputes across the nation to resort to dialogue for their settlement, in order to promote peace and development.
Mr Adjapong implored Christians, Muslims, traditionalists and all other religious faithful to peacefully co-exist and pray for peaceful polls in December, this year and the stability of the nation.
He also appealed to political parties and their supporters to be circumspect in their utterances during their campaigns in order not to spark off violence.
Mr Kwame Appiah Baah, also of the PEVFAF, for his part, called on all Ghanaians to get involved in the campaign for peace and violence-free Ghana, since there was no winner in any violent situation.