Democracy does not mean war — Dr Tetteh

Disloyalty and ignorance have been identified as some of the key reasons why people fight in a democratic dispensation.

The concept of democracy is to allow people to share their views in a free and fair atmosphere so as to promote national development and cohesion.

These were the views of a renowned evangelist, Dr Lawrence Tetteh, who led a number of pastors to pray for the nation as it gets closer to the 2016 general election.

According to him, democracy does not mean war but rather a system to get the views of the majority in order to promote the rule of law.

Essence

Dr Tetteh said the idea behind politics was to provide people the opportunity to elect leaders to propel the country to higher heights.

‘’Apart from this, the essence of party politics is to create conditions which would ensure a disciplined people that would come together to create a better nation,’’ he said.

Peace

In line with this, Dr Tetteh urged Ghanaians not to take the relative peace in the country for granted.

‘’Whichever way this upcoming election goes, peace must prevail. We, therefore, need a massive and a united front to confront the issue of hooliganism and abusive words,’’ he said.

He said the least provocation, especially in this politically charged season, could ignite into a serious situation which could disrupt the peace in the country.

“We should not deceive ourselves that we are peaceful people. Everybody is peaceful until someone steps on his or her toe. People can be very polite until they are offended. Offences can make someone disloyal and when one gets offended he can overreact,’’ he said.

Prevention

The evangelist also explained that the best way to maintain peace was to prevent the conditions which fostered violence, adding, “we must prevent any act that would incite people to resort to violence. Just one misguided word in Rwanda was what brought about the genocide’’.

He condemned comments from individuals on media platforms which tended to bring about division and disunity.“There are people who have gone on radio and thrown words not acceptable to the Ghanaian culture. We need to wake up to our responsibility and know that we have a collective responsibility to do what is right,’’ he said.

The event was organised by the Worldwide Miracle outreach, in collaboration with Holy Land Star Limited, an Israeli Company based in the country that packages anointing oil imported from Israel.

Dubbed “Let us pray,” more than 1, 000 pastors and church leaders participated in the event.

Touching on the event, Dr Tetteh said there was the need for the country to pray for a peaceful election.

“A prayerless nation is a powerless nation. I believe that we must, therefore, come together to pray for this beloved nation of ours,’’ he said.