Security Councils must be up and doing - MP

Accra, July 23, GNA - Mr Francis Yaw Osei-Safo, Member of Parliament (MP) for Krachi, on Friday called on all District Security Councils (DISECs) to promptly nip in the bud the slightest report that smelt of violence, especially when it hinged on ethnicity.

He said such prompt attention would forestall ethnic clashes and unnecessary loss of lives thus jeopardising national security and threatening the nation's fledging democracy.

Mr Osei-Safo was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the recent clashes between a group of Ewes and Kokonbas at Ayeremu Lake side also known as Azilavikope-Adakponu in the Krachi District of the Volta Region.

The clash resulted in the killing of four people and the arrest of twelve.

Mr Osei-Safo said most of the conflicts on the continent had been fuelled by ethnic leanings and when such a situation conflagrated its stoppage became difficult and expensive.

He said it was important to initially use traditional methods of resolution of conflicts by the use of chiefs and unit committees. He said some Districts Security Councils sometimes tended to consider reports of imminent dangers as commonplace issues and either through an act of omission or commission failed to act with precision and insight to forestall any clash.

Mr Osei-Safo, who said he was on his way to the area to ascertain the nature of the clash, said reports reaching him so far indicated that the issue had been simmering for sometime but no action was taken to forestall it.

He appealed for calm in the area adding: "Once the Police were taking action on the issue no party should take the law into it own hands."