The Executive Director of West Africa Centre for Counter Extremism (WACCE), Muqtar Mumuni has charged leaders of the two main political parties to use decent language in their campaigns to prevent incidences of violence in the run up to the elections.
Mr Muqtar said the polarized nature of the political space, and the stakes involved in the December polls make it vulnerable for electoral instability.
The persistent use of intemperate language affects the quality of policy discourse and also creates tension every election year.
The WACCE is thus advocating decent discourse as the polls approach.
“The narratives now are bad to taint the image of each other, especially between the two political parties and that can degenerate. The politicians must be wary of their language as it has the tendency to inflame violence and emotions among their followers”, Mr Muqtar cautioned.
As its contribution, WACCE has introduced an initiative “Building changemakers for Change project” to engage young people in communal service and patriotism.
“We decided to introduce this project because we realize when young people have a lot of time on their hands, but are not employed or positively engaged, they are swayed and involved in many negative actions, so we want to make them busy through the involvement in community service, that also builds Patriotism”, he explained
The “Building changemakers for Change project” is expected to be rolled out in Tamale and Accra, with the recruitment of over 120 youth receiving training in tree planting, painting and clean up exercises.
The Project is in collaboration with the American Embassy in Ghana.
Source:onuaonline.com