Participants at a national consultative conference on peace have advocated the purging of nepotism, mismanagement of resources and winner-takes-it-all from the country’s body politics.
Including unemployment, they said these practices and conditions posed grave danger to national peace and therefore required timely and unyielding attention by all stakeholders.
This was contained in a post-conference statement issued by Muhammad Kpakpo Addo, Executive Secretary of Ghana Conference of Religions for Peace (GCRP) in Accra.
Under the theme, ‘Caring for our common future – Advancing shared wellbeing’, the conference was attended by women, youth and religious leaders from member-organisations of the GCRP, the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and civil society organisations.
The GCRP is the Ghana chapter of the World Conference on Religions for Peace (WCRP) now Religions for Peace (RfP) International and it is affiliated to the African Council of Religious Leaders – Religions for Peace (ACRL-RfP).
The member organisations of the GCRP include Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC), Christian Council of Ghana (CCG), Federation of Muslim Councils of Ghana (FMC), Office of the National Chief Imam (ONCI) and Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Ghana (AMMG).
Others are the Council of Independent Churches (CIC), Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC), National Association of Christian and Charismatic Churches (NACCC) and the Council for African Instituted Churches (CAIC).
According to the statement, the conference was a forerunner to the 10th World Assembly of Religions for Peace International slated for August in Lindau, Germany.
Participants at the conference, it said discussed issues including ‘Preventing and transforming conflicts – including war and terrorism’, ‘Promoting just and harmonious societies’, ‘Working for sustainable and integral human development’, and ‘Protecting the earth’.
The statement said it came to light during plenary sessions that although some parts of the world are peaceful, other parts of the world lack peace due to reasons including unbridled fight for political power, lack of food and shelter in some parts of the world, unemployment, nepotism, mismanagement of national resources and terrorism.
Recommendations for restoration of peace in all parts of the world especially in the poor and less-privileged parts of the world, according to the statement, would be presented to the ACRL-RfP as part of the amalgamated report of the Africa Region of RfP to the Assembly in Germany.
Caption – Muhammad Kpakpo Addo, Executive Secretary of GCRP speaking at the conference.
BY TIMES REPORTER
