Osafo-Marfo wants mandate of National Peace Council changed
Mr Yaw Osafo- Marfo, former Member of Parliament (MP) for Akyem Oda on Wednesday proposed that the National Peace Council’s (NPC) name should be changed to National Justice and Peace Council (NJPC).
He said the change of name should come along with a new and expanded mandate to empower it to regulate, support and solve all injustices in the country.
Mr Osafo-Marfo said Ghana’s founding fathers’ founded the Nation with the motto “Freedom and Justice” and so Ghanaians needed to uphold justice in order to affirm their freedom and peace.
The former MP made the remarks in Accra, at the inaugural ceremony of the Justice and Peace Foundation, a non-governmental advocacy think-tank, which seeks to promote peace and justice. The theme for the ceremony was “NO Justice No Peace”.
He said “justice was conscience, and not personal conscience, but the conscience of the whole humanity, and Ghana could only move forward when justice was reciprocated in all its areas of works”.
The NPC was established by former President John Agyekum-Kufour to ensure justice before, during and after every general election.
“Peace is a state of harmony characterized by the lack of violent, conflict behaviours and the freedom from fear of violence and when a country is at peace, it enjoys political and economical progress,” he said.
He said action needed to be taken for justice to prevail and that was why the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had petitioned the Supreme Court as an active channel to challenge the verdict of the 2012 general election.
“We are not doing this for the NPP, but also to make room for future elections to be credible and peaceful”, he added.
Professor Daniel Adjei Bekoe said peace was not the absence of war or violence, but rather the prevalence of justice.
He congratulated the founding members of the foundation for not only coming up with the idea, but for taking the necessary steps to establish and launch it.
The foundation seeks to restore justice to its rightful position as the gateway to the attainment of sustainable peace.
The foundation has Mr Yaw Osafo- Marfo, former MP for Akyem Oda, Mr Kwamena Bartels, former MP for Ablekuma North and Mr Stephen Ntim, a private businessman as its three original foundation members and 10 other members as its council members.
As part of activities to commemorate the inaugural ceremony, a book titled “The Case in the Supreme Court” written by some seniors members of the NPP was launched.
Source: GNA