The National Peace Council has attributed the growing tension in the country ahead of the 2020 December elections to the two leading political parties, thus the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
It said the tension associated with the presidential and parliamentary polls is like no other since 1992 in the country.
According to the Upper East Regional Chairman of the Peace Council, Alhaji Sumaila Issaka, “We have gone through elections before and we’ve come out clean. In all those elections that we went through, there was tension. But come to look at the 2020 election, there seems to be more tension than any of the past elections. Why? Because of the two major parties, we are having people who have tasted the seat before and they know what it means to sit on that seat. So, everybody’s eyes are wide-opened. It’s creating a lot of tension in the country.
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“But let me say we only have this country that belongs to us. At least, most of us have crossed to the Burkina side and we have seen how we were forced to comport ourselves. Seriously, you need to comport yourself when you cross the border even as a security man. Now, imagine yourself going there as a refugee— what it is going to be like. And for this reason and many more, we want to appeal to the parties that we come out clean.
“I mean, there have been winners and losers in elections and winners have taken over smoothly and losers have handed over smoothly. It’s not the first time. We’ve done it several times. This should not be anything different from what we’ve done before. But it looks like the stakes are too high this time around.”
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The Peace Council made the observation at an event dubbed “Advocacy Campaign on Eradication of Vigilantism in Ghana” on Wednesday, October 14, 2020.
The programme is funded by the Danish Embassy and supported by the Government of Ghana.
Other stakeholders in attendance include political parties, the Electoral Commission (EC), the Ghana Police Service, the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), and civil society organisations.
