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The Founder of the Watch Your Tongue (WYT) initiative, a non-profit organisation, Sergeant Daniel Ofori-Appiah, has called on political leaders to refrain from utterances that threaten the prevailing peace and unity among Ghanaians.

He said engaging in speeches that engendered fear, hatred, tribalism and insults could seriously undermine the resolve to create an atmosphere critical for the peaceful conduct of the general election this year.

“It is for this reason that our politicians must avoid hate and tribalistic speeches and rather focus their campaigns on issues that promote national cohesion and development,” he stated.

Launch of campaign tour

In an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra last week, Sergeant Ofori-Appiah said: “If we want to see another peaceful general election this year, we must all do away with name-calling and abusive words in our writings.”

He had visited the office of the Graphic Communications Group Limited to give an insight into the entity’s nationwide “Watch Your Tongue National Peace Campaign 2020.”

The tour, whch is on the theme, “Help maintain Ghana’s peace,” would be launched in March this year in Accra, and in May, a team of volunteers, led by Sgt Ofori-Appiah, would visit all the 16 regions to sensitise Ghanaians to the need to be mindful of their utterances before, during and after this year’s general election.

The tour, scheduled to begin in the Central Region and end in the Greater Accra Region, would see the volunteers visiting schools, churches and communities to undertake the exercise.

Campaign

Sergeant Ofori-Appiah noted that freedom of speech was guaranteed by the constitution but the same constitution required everyone to be responsible in their utterances in order to foster peaceful co-existence.

“This means that you have every freedom to share your opinion for sustainable peace and development but that should not ruin the peace of the nation,” he said.

Sharing insight into the tour, the police officer, who is also a gospel musician, said the WYT campaign was an educational project about the use of the tongue in communication and it was aimed at building a positive mind-set to impact and inculcate the right attitude and character in Ghanaians.

“The campaign deals with three thematic areas, namely utterances, human actions and writings to encourage people to think right, speak right, act right and write right, all of which was to educate, transform and impact the life of others,” he said.

He pointed out that since 2017, the group had organised a number of programmes on radio, television, churches, mosques, markets, lorry stations and communities in selected regions.