The presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress, John Mahama has appealed to religious institutions to partake in the collation of 2024 electoral results.
The former President made this call while speaking to the Assemblies of God congregation in a video posted by UTV and sighted by The Accra Times. He encouraged members to continually advocate for peace together with justice and not only for the former because they are not mutually exclusive.
“If you advocate for peace, you must also advocate for justice, because peace and justice go hand-in-hand. You can not always say there should be peace when there’s injustice raining. And so while we call on the stakeholders, including my party, the NPP and all the other political stakeholders to go about the elections peacefully, we must also urge that there should be justice and that one stakeholder should not take advantage of incumbency and do things that are not right,” he said.
He further cited the unfortunate incident that occurred at Techiman South during the 2020 elections that met the untimely death of three young men – whose families have neither been compensated nor the perpetrators brought to book to buttress the need for justice to prevail.
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“We all saw what happened in 2020 – In 2020, in Techiman, soldiers just opened fire and killed three young people and up till now, nobody has been sanctioned, the parents have not been compensated, not even one kind word to them of sympathy for losing their children and I think that is not right,” he added.
The General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God Church, Rev Stephen Wengam, also indicated the church’s position on playing their part to ensure peace and justice prevail. He encouraged the Electoral Commission to be unbiased and thoroughly put things in order.
He further encouraged civil societies, religious organizations and the general public to comport themselves and be vigilant during and after the elections.
“I believe that this election will be peaceful. We’ve done it before, it’s not do and die. Every election in Ghana, people will say the stakes are very high. Every election is peculiar. What I’m saying is that the EC in particular, they should be neutral, they should be professional, they should make sure that their house is in order. The EC alone cannot do it, civil society, churches, religious groups, all the political parties. When you vote, make sure you conduct yourself peacefully and be vigilant,” the Rev. added.