National Peace Council urges ECOWAS to intervene in Togo crisis

The National Peace Council has urged ECOWAS to intervene in the ongoing Togo crisis to prevent it from degenerating.

Reverend Professor Emmanuel Asante, the Chairman of the National Peace Council, said there is the need for ECOWAS to set up a high powered committee, which would bring the two factions together for dialogue on the way forward.

This year, Togo has been witnessing a series of protests by the opposition, with a call for the country to return to the use of the 1992 constitution which imposes limits on presidential terms.

In view of the ongoing political crisis in Togo, there has been an influx of a large numbers of Togolese refugees into Ghana.

Rev Prof Asante made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the sideline of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) High Level Policy Dialogue on the future of Governance in Africa in Accra.

"Do we as the ECOWAS sub-region or West African countries, are we very much concerned about what happens in other places?" Rev Prof Asante asked.

"I know that some efforts are being made, but I would have thought that on occasions of this nature, our institutions would come together, bring the different factions together and let them jaw-jaw, so that we will be find a common ground or a solution to the problem," he said.

"Unfortunately it is like it is happening to Togo and it is not happening to Ghana, it is not happening to Burkina Faso, it is not happening to La Cote d'Ivoire and so let's sit and watch."

The brother's keeper should become the norm, Rev Prof Asante said.

"The signs have being on the wall, but you see the whole idea is non interference, even though we claim that we are trying to move away from that," he said.

"This whole issue of non interference must be something that we try as much as possible to address," he added.

The National Peace Council is an independent statutory national peace institution established by the eight hundred and eighteenth (818) Act of the Parliament of the Republic of Ghana, named The National Peace Council Act, 2011.

Thus any activity undertaken by the Council must be derived from its mandate under Act 818.

The core function of the Council is to prevent, manage, and resolve conflict and to build sustainable peace.