IDRIS: MEDIA MUST PROTECT PEACE IN NORTHERN REGION (PAGE 17)

Story: Zakaria Alhassan, Tamale

The Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, has urged media practitioners in the region to play their roles responsibly to help ensure peaceful, free and fair elections to demonstrate to the world that the people in that part of the country were mature and united in the face of their political differences and divergent opinions.
He has underlined the need for media practitioners in the region to exercise maximum restraint and care in their reportage on political activities in order not to disturb the prevailing peace in the region.
He observed that being an election year, "it is very important for the media to be cautious in what they say and write as the campaigns for the general election in December is slowly building up in the region".
Alhaji Idris was speaking during a courtesy call on him by the British High Commissioner to Ghana, Mr Nicholas Wescott, in Tamale as part of the High Commissioner’s two-day working visit to the Northern Region. He was accompanied by the Political Officer of the commission, Rosie Tapper.
He observed that the media was an important institution that wielded much power in the affairs of the region and the nation in general and that their input into the elections could either help promote the current peaceful atmosphere in the region or mar the gains made so far in the forward march of the area.
The minister said the Regional Co-ordinating Council would soon hold a meeting with the leadership of political parties in the region and the various stakeholders in the electoral process to impress on them, the need to ensure clean campaigns and free and fair elections in the area.
He, however, stated that it was the people's responsibility to also monitor the process and report any electoral malfeasance to the appropriate quarters for redress, instead of taking the law into their own hands.
Alhaji Idris described as unfortunate, the penchant for some self-seeking individuals and groups to use the chieftaincy divide in Dagbon in particular to score political points and advised the people not to allow themselves to be used at the least opportunity.
"I became a political casualty as a result of the chieftaincy issue that I had no hand in but for which reason I lost my parliamentary seat in then Gukpegu/Sabonjida Constituency in Tamale in the 2004 elections," he explained.
The High Commissioner, for his part, described the Electoral Commission’s (EC) strive to ensure free and fair elections as encouraging.
He said the EC had resolved to ensure that during his recent meeting with it in Accra.
"The electoral process should be transparent and the people should be free to vote for any party or candidate of their choice," he said.
Mr Westcott said it was to further strengthen the nascent democracy in Ghana that his country had over the years, been committing some resources to help in building the capacities of stakeholders in the electoral process.