Stop the violence President Mahama cautions perpetrators
President John Dramani Mahama has condemned the violence that has characterised the aftermath of the presidential and parliamentary elections, saying it could tarnish the country's image as the beacon of democracy and constitutional governance in Africa.
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He said election disputes arose even in the advanced democracies, but indicated that when that happened, there were laid-down procedures for resolving them.
He, therefore, cautioned those perpetrating violence against their perceived political opponents to refrain from that and follow the laid-down procedure to settle their concerns.
President Mahama was speaking at the 12th congregation of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) at Greenhill, on Saturday.
About 1,000 graduates received degrees in Executive Masters in Business Administration (EMBA), Governance and Leadership, Public Administration and Development Management.
Some of the graduates were awarded Bachelor of Science degrees and postgraduate certificates in Administration and Management.
Among the graduates were the First Lady, Mrs Lordina Mahama, Master of Governance and Leadership, and Mrs Samira Ramadan Bawumia, the wife of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, who received the best award in Master of Business Administration (Project Management option), while Prof Yaw Agyeman Badu was honoured with an academic scholarship award.
Some violence has been recorded following the declaration of President Mahama as the President-elect by the Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, with the main opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), crying foul and refusing to accept the results.
The party claims that some of the figures were bloated in favour of President Mahama and has declared its intention to challenge the results at the Supreme Court.
Some NPP supporters converged on the Obra Spot at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra to protest against the results. There are allegations that some NPP supporters stabbed some suspected National Democratic Congress (NDC) supporters and beat up some journalists. There have been similar reports of attacks on perceived political opponents in other parts of the country.
The President said now that the elections were over, it was crucial for Ghanaians to "come together and work with one soul" to propel the country's socio-economic development.
"The elections have come and gone. Let us put them behind us and build a Ghana that guarantees dignified lives for all our people. Let us come together to make the nation what we want it to be," he said.
The President said despite the competitive nature of the elections, "Ghana has passed the test for democracy and constitutional governance".
"It was the most peaceful elections ever held in the country," he said, and saluted the EC for its diligence in supervising the maiden biometric system of voting.
President Mahama acknowledged that there had been some technical hitches with regard to the verification machines and called for the retraining of EC officials who manned the machines.
He saluted Ghanaians for their patience and tolerance during the elections by joining the queues to vote, with some of them going back the following day to cast their ballots because of the difficulty encountered with the verification machines.
The President said Ghana received a lot of praise from Heads of State and Governments at the seventh summit of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group held in Equatorial Guinea last Friday.
He said speaker after speaker showered praises on Ghana for its rich democracy and constitutional governance.
He, therefore, underscored the need for Ghanaians to work jealously to guard and promote the country's democracy.
Touching on education, he said the world was in a competitive age which required people to be conversant with new ways of doing things to remain competitive.
He said it was only by constant pursuit of knowledge, research and personal development that people could stand the competition of the times.
President Mahama said it was crucial for people to move away from the search for white-collar jobs and venture into the private sector, adding that the government recognised the private sector as the engine of growth.
He, therefore, underlined the need for the public sector to be vibrant to support the growth of the private sector.
The President commended GIMPA for being one of the public institutions that had transformed itself in the last 10 years.
He asked private tertiary institutions to review their programmes to meet the demands of the job market.
The Rector of GIMPA, Prof Franklin Acheampong Manu, said the institute was in the process of merging its School of Governance and Leadership and the Public Service School to allow GIMPA to consolidate comprehensive public sector training in the areas of service, leadership and governance.
Besides, he said, the GIMPA Council had approved a performance management system, while it was at the moment considering the strategic plan of the institute.
The Rector said the institute was engaged in continued recruitment of qualified faculty members from excellent universities and indicated that there were adjustments to compensation levels to match the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).