Peace Council Must Initiate Measures In Conflict Zones—Joyce Bawah

Special Aid to former President Dramani Mahama, Joyce Bawah Mogtari, has called on the National Peace Council (NPC) to consider initiating measures and policies in conflict prone areas in order to forestall communicable and ethnic violence.

According to her, the Peace Council must identify those flashpoints where either chieftaincy or land disputes exist for ages and engage members of those communities with policies.

She says it would go a long way to minimize conflicts in the country.

Joyce Bawah said this on Good Morning Ghana program on Metro TV on Monday May 27,209, monitored by Modernghana.

The Vice President, Dr Mahamoud Bawumi, during a visit to the Northern part of the country, made a call to the feuding communities at Chereponi in the newly created North East Region, to seize fire and let peace prevail.

According to the Vice President, what was important for the people of Chereponi was to kill poverty by living in peace with each other and not to kill themselves for things that would not bring development.

However, commenting on the matter, on the MetroTV, the former Deputy Minister of Transport under John Mahama administration, opined that most of the conflicts could be resolved smoothly if the National Peace Council had taken the lead by regularly engaging residents of those known conflicts areas on the need to pursue development and not violence.

She stated that the causes and the reasons of conflicts if are early detected, the possibility of preempting them are very high and that the Peace Council should considers involving Chiefs and major stakeholders in conflict prone areas in its activities.

Joyce Bawah said, what usually made misunderstanding to degenerate into protracted conflicts waste fact that the youth members of those areas are educated enough to embrace peace and are often grow or live to fight For what their fathers started.

She cited the Konkomba and Nanomba, the Yendi Skin between Abudus and Andania, the Gonjaland conflicts flash-points, among other places across the country, which need to continue dialogue with stakeholders.

Nana Yaa. Mensah, Managing Editor of Daily Statesman newspaper, who was on the program expressed similar sentiment and called an end to the conflict in Chereponi.

According to her, we cannot develop as a country if we continue to kill each other over pieces of lands which have no significant value on human lives.

She also called on the Peace Council not to adopt a firefighting approach but regularly engage people in conflict zones to coexist in peace for development, for development could not be a substituted with conflicts.

The renewed clashes between Chokosis and Konkombas around Chereponi and Saboba has left one person dead and a number of people sustained various degrees of injury.

The conflict which is said to be triggered by a land depute has also left many properties destroyed, houses burnt and women and children displaced.

Police and the military have been deployed to the District to maintained law and order.