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 Prof. Samuel Agyei-Mensah, Provost of the College of Humanities, University of Ghana,  Prof. Joshua Abor, Dean of University of Ghana Business School (UGBS) and  Prof. John Owusu Gyapong, Pro-Vice Chancellor, ORID, University of Ghana.
Prof. Samuel Agyei-Mensah, Provost of the College of Humanities, University of Ghana, Prof. Joshua Abor, Dean of University of Ghana Business School (UGBS) and Prof. John Owusu Gyapong, Pro-Vice Chancellor, ORID, University of Ghana.

Academia, business community jolted to ensure peaceful elections

Speakers at a University of Ghana Business School (UGBS) conference on business and development have called on the business community and academia to come out of their comfort zones and support Ghana’s electoral process to achieve peaceful elections.

They said the two sectors had a lot to lose if the election process was derailed and the country was turned on its head.

The Dean of the UGBS, Prof. Joshua Y. Abor, and the Pro-Vice Chancellor in the Office of Research, Innovation and Development (ORID), Prof John Owusu Gyapong, were of the view that the role played by academia in Nigeria’s 2015 elections showed that academia could give a lot of credibility to elections.

The two-day conference has provided a platform for researchers and other scholars to share their research findings, as well as engage policy makers on critical policy issues.

Play active role

Welcoming delegates to the conference, Prof. Abor said academia and the business community could support the electoral process by serving as electoral officers and also supporting peace efforts.

“As we embark on research to redeem humanity from corruption, poverty and violence, we should ponder over peaceful elections and other issues that are critical to maintaining peace on our continent,” he charged.

“Business also needs to join hands with academia in the quest for peaceful elections. The various associations and trade unions could also embark on campaigns to drum home the issue of peace among their members,” he added. 

Prof Abor observed that the two sectors were key to calming the tension ahead of the 2016 general election because they were bound by codes of ethics to protect the integrity of the communities they served.

“It is only when there is peace that we can work without fear. The wake-up call is that as touch bearers of peace, we should play our watchdog roles effectively. Come December 2016, let’s avoid conflict and breed peace, so that we don’t find ourselves in murky waters,” he urged. 

Threats

For his part, Prof. Gyapong observed that the various tertiary institutions were not living in a vacuum and were susceptible to the threats of the wider national environment.

He said it was, therefore, essential that academia contributed to peace initiatives as a way of insulating tertiary institutions from the influence of negativities from the political scene.

Prof. Gyapong, who spoke on the theme: “Peaceful elections: The role of academia and business” as the keynote speaker, observed that both academia and business had played negligible roles since the country’s first elections in 1992. 

“Academia must be at the forefront of providing solutions for the issues at stake; likewise our businesses are left out in our peace industry as far as the politics of this country is concerned,” he said 

Sounding the clarion call, he stated: “Elections are premised on credibility. We need credible people in academia and business because the assumption is that we will bring some credibility to the elections.”

He proposed that advertisers should include peace messages in their advertisements.

Threatened track record 

The Provost of the College of Humanities of the university, Prof. Samuel Agyei-Mensah, pointed out that although the country had established a distinguished electoral track record, each election had seen tension, with accusations of electoral malpractice.

“We have almost come to the verge of losing our grip and giving in to violence, compelling us to question the sustainability of the peace we enjoy,” he said. 

To curb the trend, he said, it was imperative for political actors not to engage in anything that could disturb the peace the country was enjoying. 

Success stories 

Elections in Africa have been associated with violence, disputes, court cases and civil wars. However, the process is not just about doom and gloom, as some success stories have been recorded in countries such as Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Botswana and Senegal.

The peaceful nature of Nigeria’s 2015 elections which saw the handing over of power peacefully from one party to another has partly been attributed to the role played by academia. 

In Ghana, academia and the business community are viewed as passive members of the political space.

 

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