[ 2016-11-22 ]

Rigging, ethnocentrism recipe for violence – Opuni-Frimpong
The General Secretary of the Christian Council of
Ghana (CCG), Rev Dr Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, has
identified election rigging efforts, violence, and
tribalistic comments as challenges to the peace of
the country ahead of the polls on 7 December.

Speaking on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on
Class91.3FM on Tuesday 22 November, he urged the
two major political parties – the governing
National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the
opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) – to avoid
sowing seeds of disunity by making ethnocentric
comments ahead of the polls.

His comment comes on the back of recent tribal
comments made by some key political figures
including President John Dramani Mahama on
campaign platforms ahead of the election.

“Cheating runs through all of them – that is,
registering minors, efforts to rig, double voting,
and all that. You [also] find violence where
people are arming innocent young people to go out
and attack other people. A simple thing like
[health] walk is turning into bloodshed, some
people are destroying posters and using abusive
language…then the tribal card. I must say that
in all these areas that I have just enumerated,
the two leading political parties are all behaving
the same way,” Rev Opuni-Frimpong told show host
Prince Minkah.

“At the moment, with the tribal card, you hear
that in the Volta Region, for example, somebody
says, ‘this party doesn’t like you’; in the
North you hear: ‘vote for us, we love you more
than the others’. But people want to hear how
quality education will be achieved, good health,
our roads. Ghanaians want employment, we want to
hear our foreign policies… These are the things
we want to hear. We have some few days to election
and you hear party heavyweights, all of them,
dividing the country on tribal lines.”

Rev Opuni-Frimpong advised political leaders that
dividing the nation to win elections will make
governance difficult for them. He said: “We must
understand when you divide us on tribal lines and
you win power, you will need the commitment, the
dedication. And if you divide us today, you make
governance difficult tomorrow and so we want to
plead with our political leaders that they must be
very careful on how they play tribal cards and
religious cards. It doesn’t help anybody, it
won’t help them.”

Source - Classfmonline

... go Back