The Executive Secretary of the National Peace Council (NPC), Mr George Amoh, has asked Ghanaians to commit themselves to maintain the peace of the country.
“We cannot afford at this time of our history to allow anything to derail the peace that God has graciously given to us as Ghanaians,” he said.

Capacity building

Mr Amoh said that Tuesday at the opening ceremony of a three-day capacity-building workshop organised for regional staff of the NPC with support from the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA).

The workshop is to build the capacity of the staff in conflict and project management and report writing techniques.

Challenging year

Mr Amoh described 2020 as a very challenging year for the NPC primarily because it was an election year and the scare of vigilantism was very pronounced.

He said the development of a road map and code of conduct for the political parties, however, helped the country to go through the electioneering successfully.

He said the NPC had identified polarisation and intolerance as the topmost issues confronting the peace of the county.

Mr Amoh cited polarisation in the areas of politics, religion and ethnicity as one of the issues that the NPC was working hard to address.

Steps

As part of the efforts to curb the menace, he said, the NPC had decided not only to build the capacity of its staff but “also involve peace actors in areas we think can help reduce intolerance in our Ghanaian community”.

Aside from that, he said, the NPC would also embark upon activities to ensure that political intolerance was reduced.

Peace

While acknowledging that Ghana still remained the most peaceful country in the West African Sub region, he said a lot more remained to be done.

Mr Amoh said there was the need for Ghanaians to “rise up to the occasion and keep the county as a topmost peaceful country not only in the sub region of West Africa but also on the African continent.

“Peace is our identity and we should keep this identity,” he said.