Keep talking peace

Five presidential candidates who contested the 2012 elections and the leader of a political party last Wednesday, took the peace overtures to the protagonists in the election petition before the Supreme Court.

They went separately to Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and President John Mahama to defuse the tension in the country by asking them to symbolically embrace each other in public and appeal to their supporters to also accept the outcome of the petition on August 29, 2013.

Some people have described as cacophonous the numerous appeals for peace before, during and after the court verdict.

To such people, Ghanaians are peace-loving and that the peace overtures are rather creating tension in society.

They may be right when what is happening is viewed against what the sages say: “Too many cooks spoil the broth”, but in our case everybody agrees that the case before the Supreme Court is unprecedented and historic, for which reason its outcome must be managed well in order not to disrupt the peace of the country.

We should also not pretend that we are in normal times, as issues involving the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have always brought about tension in the country.

It is in this context that the Daily Graphic lauds the NDC, the People’s National Convention (PNC) and the Convention People’s Party (CPP) for their decision to participate at the highest level in the 21st anniversary celebrations of the NPP in Accra yesterday.

We expect more interactions among our politicians to demonstrate the esprit de corps in the body politic.

From now onwards, and immediately after the verdict, we expect everybody to mind his or her tongue. In a free society, it does not pay to gag anybody, but we want to appeal to the conscience of the people to be patriotic in their endeavours.

The Daily Graphic abhors any form of censorship, but it will go all out to preach self-regulation, so that journalists and media practitioners will respect the code of ethics of the profession.

To this end, we call on the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), the Private Newspaper Publishers Association (PRINPAG) and the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) to rein in their members who allow their platforms to be used to preach hate speech and violence in the country.

Daily Graphic/Ghana