Odotei Condemns Tribal Politics
A Member of the National Peace Council (NPC), Prof. Irene Odotei, has condemned the tribal politics that poisoned the political environment in the build-up to the presidential run-off.
She said tribal politics undermined the peace of the nation and must be condemned totally.
Prof. Odotei, who was speaking at a consultative workshop on peace with regard to the polls before, during and after the elections, said: “No ethnic group can claim superiority over the other”.
She added that Ghanaians are one people and must strive to live together as such.
About 100 participants including media practitioners, political party representatives and other stakeholders in the elections attended the one-day workshop.
Prof. Odotei, who is a professor of history, traced the political history of the country and said Ghana had come very far in its political development and must move to maintain the image it had carved for itself.
She condemned chiefs who were doing active politics, pointing out that it was against the spirit and letter of the 1992 Constitution.
Another member of NPC, Dr Ansah Koi, called on politicians to be honest and accept their failures in elections rather than attribute them to ethnic considerations.
Dr Koi said with the relatively peaceful conduct of the elections, Ghana had once again showed the way for Africa in the practice of true democracy.
“We can learn a lesson that our electoral system works so we must trust our system”, he added.
Dr Koi stressed the need for the people to be careful the way they celebrate. He said defeat in elections does not mean the end of one's political career or life.
“You can come back another time to win elections so we must take defeats in good faith”, he stressed.
The NPC member advised journalists against allowing politicians to use them to achieve their political ambitions in this crucial moment of the elections.
Dr Koi says hard work pays and that is why in spite of the complaints by the opposition of abuse of incumbency, the December 7 general election produced a number of casualties in the ruling party.
He was of the conviction that the next parliament would be very strong, to put a check on the executive.
During an open forum, some participants stressed the need for political parties to wait for the EC to announce results, to avoid threat to peace.
A member of the council, Mr Kwabena Kesse, who chaired the ceremony, commended the participants for the seriousness they attached to the workshop.
The Programmes Co-ordinator of the NPC, Mr Emmanuel Sowatey, told the Daily Graphic, that the various workshops organised by the NPC had proved very useful and commended the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that sponsored the workshop for its continued support for the council's activities.
Story by Kwame Asare Boadu