Daniel Kwame Ampofo Adjei taking the participants in one of the sessions at the Workshop
By Desmond Tinana
The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has held a peace dialogue workshop with some youths in the Volta Region. The workshop, which had youth members of political parties from the region, was aimed to conscientize the youths to embrace peace before, during, and after the upcoming December 7th General Elections in Ghana.
In an interview with Daniel Kwame Ampofo Adjei, Institutional Development, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager at the MFWA said the essence of the meeting was to bring the youths together, sensitize them about the need to be peaceful in their rhetoric, radio communication, and also enlighten them on basic ways they can identify fake news and ways in which they can check facts and ensure that before they act on any form of communication, before they themselves, become conveyors of fake news, they would have checked and be sure that the information is fact and not fake news.
He added that the youth are very key stakeholders and very important in Ghana’s electoral processes. “They are the ones who go on air to communicate what their various political parties intend to do, and they are also the ones who receive the aspirations and the interests of the people and share it with their respective political parties, so if these elections will be successful, we cannot do away with them.”
He also cautioned them to be watchful of what they say on radio as they are being monitored.
Sitting the Mutie FM incident that happened in the past, he also used the opportunity to urge the media to live up to their responsibility and work according to their code of ethics by regulating content on their media outlets. He mentioned that the radio monitoring the foundation has done so far from June up to date, monitoring over 30 radio stations in four regions, show hosts account for close to half of indecent expressions on radio pointing to the fact that the media, especially, show hosts, are thick in the whole process of indecent language on radio. “So we urge the youths, the media owners if you consider the Muntie FM example, you would observe that it was not only the presenters who were punished, the discussants, the organization, the media organization, and the owners were also punished. So if you are a media owner, please live up to expectations. Let us remind our discussants about the need to be decent in their communication. You can post posters that will draw their attention to be decent in their language (inside the studio). We know we are humans, so sometimes tempers will flare up, but as a moderator, that is why you sit there as a moderator; you should use your code of ethics and ensure that you moderate your session but not rather add to the problem that we already have.” Mr Adjei explained.
Dr. David Esinu Yao Normanyo, the Volta Regional Executive Secretary of the National Peace Council, also added the call, stating, “I believe some of the youth who are politically active will grow up and take politics as a career and in every career, your intention is to progress to the top. If you engage in violence now when you are a young man or woman, and politics is your career when you grow there are certain roles and responsibilities that you will not be assigned even your own party will go down memory lane to dig out the bad things, the violent character that you exhibited when you were a young person and so if you are taking politics as a career, you have to be careful because tomorrow, those will come back to hunt you and so we are urging the youth to be conscious.
He went further to say when there is violence, those who perpetrate the violence are the youth, and those who become victims of the violence are the youth, so the youth are both the perpetrators of violence and victims of violence. “When you allow yourself to be used, remember, you are also allowing yourself to become a victim of violence. And that is not… Developmental. How do you allow yourself to be hurt? So the youth must realize this dual role that they play in violence causation. And they don’t only participate in the violence, but they become the major victims. So they have to be conscious about this that when they engage in whatever political campaign, political activities, and some people behind encouraging them to perpetrate violence, they should be aware that they are targets of violence as well.”
According to Jones Amegashie-Viglo, Executive Director of the Youth Impact Parliament, who also participated in the workshop, “The youths are mostly used as tools to insight violence. If the youth resolve to be peaceful, our elections will surely be peaceful so the youth politicians need to avoid violence in this election.”
Another participant, Rita Batse, Deputy Administrator for the New Patriotic Party Youth Wing in the Hohoe Constituency of the Volta Region said “As youth for political parties, we’ve been doing some of the things wrong and as they have taught us, it’s an eye-opener, we promise to learn from it, correct our mistakes, so that we can protect the peace of this country. I pledge on behalf of the New Patriotic Party that we’ll do the best for this country, so that on December 7th, when we cast our votes, at the end of the day, Ghana will be the winner. We are the future leaders, and when this country is destroyed, we the youth, will be the ones to suffer most, so we need to protect the peace of this country, as youth. Do the right things.
The Volta Regional Chairman for the People’s National Congress (PNC) also pledged that the party will prioritize peace in the upcoming elections. In his words, “As a peace-loving political party, we pledge to conduct ourselves peacefully during and after the general election. Though our party is not on the 13 political parties that are supposed to be on the ballot, we are still in court and will continue to be in court until justice is served to us. But without justice, there will still be peace and we call on Ghanaians, especially the youth, that we should all embrace the peace that we are enjoying.
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