Daily Guide Picks Award

WESTERN PUBLICATIONS Limited, publishers of DAILY GUIDE newspaper, was last Friday awarded the Best Security and Safety Friendly Print Media in Ghana in the corporate category of this year's Security Watch Africa (SWA) Awards.

Other award winners in that category are The Sun Newspaper and This Day Newspaper, both from Nigeria; Ghana Broadcasting Corporation; The Trust Bank; South African Broadcasting Corporation; Nigeria Eagles Airlines and Daar Communications Plc, operators of African Independent Television (AIT) and Ray Power Radio, among others.  

During the colourful event, several awards were also bestowed on both Ghanaian and Nigerian security agencies, corporate organizations and some government officials, while past award winners including Alhaji Aliu Mahama, former Vice President; Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas, President of ECOWAS Commission; Dr. Felix Anyah of Holy Trinity Hospital and Dr. Theresa Opong Beeko, CEO of Manet Group, were inducted into the hall of fame.

However, while the Nigerian security capos came in their numbers to pick their awards, their Ghanaian counterparts were conspicuously absent, even though the organizers said they had earlier organized a two-day workshop at Holy Trinity Spa at Sogakofe to sensitize them about security issues.  

SWA is a Nigerian-based organization, but with an African outlook. The awards programme started in 2004 and aims at recognizing, appreciating, encouraging and celebrating individuals, groups, agencies as well as organizations which had excelled in security administration, operations, practice and governance in Africa.      

A speech read on behalf of President John Evans Atta Mills by the Interior Minister, Cletus Avoka said, “We have reached a stage in our national development where everybody, including civil society organizations, need to come on board to contribute his or her quota to activities that will promote socio-economic transformation of our dear continent”.

According to the President, it is in this vein that; “Government is embarking on a process to further promote and consolidate media pluralism and national unity through media-related activities to promote good governance, with a high level of transparency and accountability.

“We need to resource the media by enhancing its efficiency and its effectiveness in the performance of its activities”, he stressed.

This, President Mills indicated, could only be achieved through the acquisition of appropriate knowledge and skills with the necessary tools to facilitate the media's role in creating an informed, knowledgeable and united society in which every citizen would contribute immensely to the continent's development.

Further, he noted that the main ingredient which would promote good governance was peace and national unity and thus, “The pursuit of peace and security will continue to be given high priority in the conduct of Ghana's foreign policy as they are essential for growth and prosperity”.

Ghana's Chief Executive was however confident that given the current level of political will, vision and sense of commitment, the region would continue to enjoy peace and security to enable development and progress.

“It is our conviction that Ghana's internal peace, security and development remain inseparable from sub-regional peace and stability”, he emphasized.

Assuring that in the search for peace, security and stability on the continent, Ghana would continue to be active in the efforts of the African Union (AU) to find lasting solutions to conflicts in Africa.

The International Coordinator of SWA, Patrick Agbambu, mentioned that though endowed vastly with both human and material resources, the continent continued to suffer as a result of insensitivity on the part of some public office holders.

“More worrisome is the high degree of insecurity of lives and property born out of our desire to see a safe and secured Africa that we dream of”, he explained.

For him, it is factual that no nation, organization or individual could progress meaningfully without security. “It is true also that there cannot be a state of total security but we must strive to put machinery in place to achieve a state of relative peace and security in our countries and homes”, he added.

By Nathaniel Y.Yankson