Chairman of the National Peace Council (NPC), The Most Reverend Professor Emmanuel Kwaku Asante, has cautioned that current tensions between the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), if not handled well, may escalate and disturb the peace in the country.
The NPP has within the past week had altercations with the BNI after the Bureau arrested  three ex-cops from South Africa invited by the party to train their security personnel and Captain (rtd) Edmund Koda, head of security for NPP flagbearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
The NPP, after an alleged raiding of Captain (rtd) Koda's Weija residence and the offices of pro-NPP think tank, Danquah Institute, accused the government of hiding behind the national security apparatus to harass them and on Monday, some party youth threatened to hit the streets if Captain (rtd) Koda, who had been reportedly been taken very ill, was not released.
Speaking on the JOYNEWS TV on Monday, Most Rev. Prof. Asante pleaded that "undue politicisation of the event must stop because it is Ghana's interest that is at stake and we need to do all that we can to try as much as possible to address this kind of situation so that it doesn't escalate into something that all of us do not want".
"I can foresee that if we continue to politicise it, parties begin to give press conferences and others react to it and the way we are going about it, if we are not very careful, this will escalate and can create problems for our country", he added.
He noted that all these tensions  very carefulcould have been avoided if the parties involved had trusted each other.
"Why would an opposition party think that we need to train our own security?  This will come about only when they think that they are not going to be given the kind of protection they need or they do not have trust in the existing security organisations", he explained.
He advised government, security institutions and all parties involved to do all they can to ensure there is trust  "because otherwise, we are going to create a situation in our nation which will not augur well for all of us".
"The government should do the best they can to win the trust of the people and the institutions must not do anything to undermine the trust which is already waning and I would also want to appeal to those who because they think that they cannot trust the security system to try as much as possible to cooperate and ensure that they are ready to build the trust that we need for our democracy", he said.
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Source: primenews.com.gh