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THE HYPOCRITICAL VOICE OF THE NATIONAL PEACE COUNCIL IS DANGEROUS THAN THE TONGUE OF A “FALSE PROPHET”
If ever there was going to be chaos or danger in Ghana, it won’t happen because of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or the activities of Vigilantes, but it will happen largely on the growing levels of hypocrisy in the system. If ever the system was set to fail, it won’t happen because of corruption or borrowing to consume, but on the back of cooked HYPOCRISY.
If men who are paid to speak fairly, see widely, hear all and consult broadly rather get too polarized than the General Secretaries of political parties, then, Ghana is just an inch away from organized disaster. A disaster which is created and nurtured by same hands made to prevent same.
Nobody should tell anybody that Ghana as it is today is polarized along three distinct lines: political, religious and ethnic. The average Ghanaian largely owes strict allegiance to his/her Political Party, Pastor/Imam and/or the ethnic group other than the state. So institutions like the National Peace Council (NPC) are set to serve as key stakeholders who should create a centre where all extremists can drift towards. But if such a weighty institution such as this is rather at the other end of the see-saw and throwing more weight about, this can only cause the imbalances in the system.
By an act of Parliament, Act, 2011 (Act 818) and assented to by President Mills on the 16th of May, 2011, the National Peace Council was set up to among other functions, adopt and increase awareness on the use of non-violent strategies to prevent, manage and resolve conflicts and build sustainable peace in the country. Anything, any comment, any perceived posture from the NPC, it’s allied bodies or members which suggest otherwise to peace building is just as dangerous as threats of terrorists attacks on Ghanaians.
The NPC is not an adhoc committee where it’s Chairman or other Board Members can make comments in passing. This is a serious organization, created by an Act of Parliament, which has to conduct its activities with some form of seriousness. Why should the decisions of the NPC be made on radio interviews by some selected Board Members like Mr George Amo? And in the final analysis their personal opinions are mostly reported as that of the Council.
If the NDC National Organizer or the NPP General Secretary should call for the arrest of their political opponents on the account of commentaries such as prophecies made by Owusu Bempah or Angel Obinim, Ghanaians might just forgive them, but to have an agent like the Secretary to the NPC whose political biases are as naked as the anus of a woman in labour to make such comments that suggest the position of the NPC, then, we are just at the brink.
If prophecies were a recipe for chaos; if comments like “the EC and a ruling government are set to rig elections” were such dangerous as we are being told today, then, Ghana would have burnt into ashes since. We were in this country when Hon Ken Agyapong, Mr Martin Amidu and the Let My Vote Count crew mounted series of attacks and baseless allegations on Madam Charlotte Osei and her EC over rigging plans. Mr Martin Amidu wrote articles upon articles to drum home his perception that the EC boss was appointed by HE John Mahama to rig election 2016 for him and the NDC. Where was the NPC and it’s agents? What is this selectivity about? Some Animal’s Farm king of gymnastics?
We were in this country when the President’s God father (Rev. Owusu Bempah) went on deadly voyage; he killed almost all the people who matter in this country. Didn’t the NPC sensed a religious clash when President Nana Addo’s Pastor (Owusu Bempah) said the National Chief Imam will die before 31st December, 2019? Let’s assume the Muslim Youth had met a congregation of young men the day they went to attack Owusu Bempah’s church, what do you think would have happened? But in all these, the Secretary to the National Peace Council and his Chairman were right in this country. Maybe what is peaceful to them has nothing to do with the war drums the NPP and their agents are beating.
On another account, the Chairman of the National Peace Council, Rev. Emmanuel Asante, swiftly called on HE John Dramani Mahama to apologize to Ghanaians and went ahead to condemn Mr Mahama’s boot-4-boot comment, but same Rev. failed to acknowledge and condemn the terrorism the NPP hooligans engaged in during the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-elections which caused Mr Mahama to have made those comments. What principles inform the commentary and posture of the NPC Chairman and his agents? Does the NPC as a body agree on some of the positions taken by especially its Chairman and the Secretary on some happenings in this country? Or we have an “empty body” of a National Peace Council which is managed by individual opinions carved out of their political persuasions? The Council can do better than what it’s doing now.
A country where the Running Mate to the main opposition party (NPP) could organize a press conference and refer to about 76,000 Voltarians as Togolese and no revolution came from the Volta Region and no condemnation came from its National Peace Council, that National Peace Council cannot cry today over prophecies made by a Prophet which isn’t new anyway. A country whose National Peace Council see nothing wrong with secessionists activities over a period now cannot be worried over allegations against the EC which isn’t new anyway.
A country where a known NPP financier and a sitting Member of Parliament can call for the killing of Ahmed Suale (the Journalist) on live TV and finally got it executed, and not even a single Youth from the Zongo rose with a machete to slit anybody’s throat and not a single word of condemnation and call for an arrest came from its National Peace Council Secretary, that same country cannot be crying today over a mere prophecy of same kind as Owusu Bempa’s. So if different standards are set for different people and institutions depending upon where they belong or which party’s ideology they share, then, this system call Ghana was set to fail.
A country where it’s EC boss who is supposed to be a neutral arbiter in our electoral processes can go on live radio to describe a leading political party as a dangerous entity to our democracy, and not even a word of caution from its National Peace Council, then, that institution called the National Peace Council or its members can best be described as appendages of some few bourgeoisie.
We have a nation to build and we must all be interested in what principles should be set for all to live with. We all wish our democracy to be like that of the USA but we are never ready to behave like her people. The USA is corrupt, some of her people are corrupt, but its institutions are working because there are standards and principles within which all actions of key stakeholders are regulated and measured. If you want Ghana to be like them then, it’s people should be ready to behave like them.
Has National Peace Council sensed any danger and chaos embedded in the statement made by Ghana’s Majority Leader in Parliament, Hon Osei Kyei at the NPP Delegates Conference at the Trade Fair, to the effect that the NDC was going to be in perpetual opposition if ever the NPP and the EC succeeded in compiling a New Voter’s Register? This statement never was made out of nothing but a revelation of the agenda of the EC and the NPP. This statement is as dangerous as a terrorist organization operating in Ghana. With all these, we don’t need the prophecies of Prophet Neigel to know that the EC and the NPP are up to something fishy. We interact with them, they say it without blinking, so, we know what they are up to.
If those paid to speak against evil become the God Fathers of the devil himself, then, expect the devil to have a field day in its pursuit. The National Peace Council should get back to the drawing board because a lot of Ghanaians are losing trust in that institution. And don’t tell me it’s only the NDC members because they are Ghanaians too.
I am a Citizen from Laribanga, and I come in PEACE. Shalom 🙏
By Issifu Seidu Kudus Gbeadese
(0244198031)
skseidu_14@yahoo.com
